The early retirement benefit will be payable to a person who age on separation is at least 55 years but is less than what would be considered to be the normal retirement age.
They should also have been in service with a company for five years or longer.
In general most employees will become eligible for retirement benefits in the month that they reach 62 and they will then receive their first payment the following month.
However if you do decide to take early retirement and so decide to start your benefits early then they will be reduced a fraction of a percent for each month prior to your full retirement age.
But as a general rule if you take early retirement benefits you will get about the same total Social Security benefits over the rest of your lifetime it will just mean that they come in smaller amounts in order to take into account that you will actually be receiving them over a longer period.
There are some advantages as well as disadvantages to be had from you taking early retirement benefits before you actually reach full retirement age.
One really big advantage is that you will be collecting your benefits for a longer period of time.
But unfortunately the downside to this is that they will be permanently reduced as they need to cover you for a longer period of time.
So if you decide to start your benefits early then they will be permanently reduced based on the number of months before you will actually reach full retirement age.
So if your full retirement age is 65 and you decide to retire at 62 then the reduction on your benefits will be 20% and if you decide to retire at 63 it would be 13 1/3% and if you decide to retire early at 64 then your benefits will be reduced by 6 2/3%.
If you would like to check out if you will be early retirement is better for you then why not try one of the many different calculators available on line which should help you to decide whether early retirement is right for you or not.
Also it may be wise to contact your local Social Security Office to see what advice they can provide with regard to an early retirement benefit.