New paper: "Strange But True: Free Loan From Social Security"

The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College has released a new Issue in Brief titled "Strange But True: Free Loan From Social Security," by Alicia H. Munnell, Alex Golub-Sass, and Nadia Karamcheva. The brief's key findings are:

• An unconventional strategy allows individuals to use early Social Security benefits like a "free loan," paying back the principal while keeping the interest.
  
• If this strategy were widely adopted, it would cost Social Security $6 billion to $11 billion per year today and more in the future.
  
• The strategy primarily benefits higher income individuals, who have the financial resources to invest their benefits and tend to be in better health.
  

This brief is available here.