I remember sitting across from a financial advisor in 2008 who swore delaying Social Security was the ultimate no brainer. His leather bound planner showed neat compounding curves promising 8% annual returns just for waiting. Fifteen years later, I watch real people make very different choices, and it isn't because they failed math class.

The gap between spreadsheet fantasies and kitchen table realities grows wider each year. We've reached peak absurdity when Washington think tanks publish studies proving that dollar maximization requires waiting until 70, while actual Social Security administration data shows over 90% of Americans file before then. The disconnect isn't about intelligence. It's about privilege blindness in financial advice.

Let me state the obvious: You cannot postpone income you need today for theoretical gains tomorrow. This basic truth evaporates in the conference rooms where retirement 'best practices' are drafted. I've witnessed this firsthand when a major wealth management firm pitched delaying Social Security to call center workers making $18/hour. The room stared blankly until someone whispered the question everyone was thinking: 'What exactly are we supposed to eat between 62 and 70?'

Three critical flaws poison this 'wait until 70' dogma. First, it assumes perfect health and longevity that statistically doesn't exist for construction workers, nurses, or anyone who didn't spend their career in ergonomic chairs. Second, it ignores how gig economy earnings transform retirement from an event into a slow fade. Last, and most corrosive, it blames individuals for systemic failures like our evaporating pension system and three decades of wage stagnation.

Consider Maria, a housekeeper I interviewed in Las Vegas last year. At 62, her arthritis made scrubbing tubs unbearable. Her 401k? A laughable $18,000 after a lifetime of service jobs that rarely offered retirement plans. That early Social Security check at 62 wasn't optimization failure. It was survival. Yet I still receive white papers from wealth managers claiming behavioral bias explains early filing. Maybe stop pathologizing poverty.

The hypocrisy becomes richer when you track who actually follows this advice. Research from Prudential reveals the cohort delaying benefits until 70 skews heavily toward college educated professionals with above average assets. In other words, people who don't need the money counsel patience to those who do. It has the same energy as Marie Antoinette's cake suggestion.

Even the government's own math exposes this charade. That famous 8% annual increase for delayed filing? It's not compound growth but simple actuarial mathematics balancing early filers against late ones. The Social Security Administration isn't giving away free money. They're running a neutral system where, on average, recipients collect roughly equivalent lifetime benefits regardless of filing age. The privilege lies in having the health and wealth to gamble on living long enough to 'win' the delay game.

This brings us to financial advice's dirty secret: Our retirement industry obsesses over Social Security timing because it's easier than addressing America's crumbling retirement infrastructure. Focus on when to file distracts from why so many arrive at retirement age with only Social Security as their safety net. Remember that 401ks were never designed as primary retirement vehicles. They were 1978 tax loopholes for highly compensated employees. Now they're all we've got, leaving nearly half of private sector workers without any workplace retirement plan.

The gender and racial dimensions compound the outrage. Women filing at 62 aren't being impulsive, they're following the math of their lived experience. Lower lifetime earnings from caregiving penalties combined with longer life expectancy leaves little room for benefit maximization games. For Black and Hispanic workers, whose average retirement savings are less than one third of white families', delayed filing is a luxury barely on the menu.

Alternative approaches exist if we'd stop moralizing about willpower. Colorado's public pension system ties benefits to actual wages rather than final salary averages. Australia's superannuation model mandates employer contributions to portable retirement accounts. Even partial fixes like expanding the Saver's Tax Credit could help close gaps.

But none of these solutions let Wall Street peddle the myth that perfect individual choices can overcome structural inequities. I've watched this play before. We blamed homeowners for subprime loans instead of predatory lenders. Now we blame workers for 'suboptimal' Social Security choices rather than confronting our vanishing retirement infrastructure.

The ultimate irony? Those most vocal about delaying benefits until 70 often oppose expanding Social Security through simple reforms like raising the payroll tax cap. This preserves maximum benefits for those who need them least.

My advice? Tune out the ivory tower scolds. Whether you file at 62, 70 or somewhere in between depends entirely on your health, savings and obligations. The only universal truth: Building systems that force vulnerable elders to gamble on their expiration dates isn't financial planning. It's societal failure wearing a necktie.