For virtually all private sector workers they are compelled by law to pay into Social Security via their paycheck payroll deduction, so as to receive their future Social Security benefits, upon retirement eligibility. Whether you see the value and wisdom of the Social Security program or not, that is the way the government has structured it and you cannot start receiving benefits for all of the years that you paid into the Social Security system, until you reach at a minimum the age of 62, with the current law structured that those that were born in the year 1960 or later, having their full retirement age being set at age 67, in which they will receive 100% of their calculated benefits per month, and those that postpone their Social Security payments until they are age 70, will receive an extra premium per month for having made that specific delay.
While there are all sorts of calculations available to help figure out which Social Security payout age would be best for you, one also must calculate in their particular financial as well as health situation in order to come up with the best decision. Currently, unlike some pension funds, the Social Security administration does not allow you to opt-into a one-time Social Security lump sum payout, although for people that delay their Social Security payments until after their full retirement age they are permitted under special circumstances to get a retroactive lump-sum payout, but alas this is limited to a maximum of six months of benefits.
As you might expect, different people have different needs from their Social Security benefits, in which certain people don't even need their monthly payouts because their assets are so great to begin with, to people that definitely need their social security monthly payouts, but even that monthly amount isn't enough to take care of their basic financial well being, and, of course, everything in-between. It seems surprising, that in a country as large and as sophisticated as America, that a program hasn't already been developed that allows retirees of Social Security age the option to replace their future Social Security monthly payouts and replace this with a one-time cash-out payment. There are obvious reasons why someone might opt for that one-time cash-out payment, despite the fact that such a payment must be discounted to its present-day value, which is that money up front allows you the opportunity to pay off bills, and/or to buy things that you need or desire today, rather than never really having enough cash to do so in the future. Additionally, for savvy investors, even with their future Social Security payments being discounted to their present-day value they would be freely able to take such a lump sum payment and invest it as they so desire in the belief that such an investment plan would be superior to what they would have received via monthly payments by the Social Security administration.
The bottom line is this, the Social Security payments are an obligation that the government has to the individual for being the fiduciary party in receiving such from paychecks throughout the lifetime of a given laborer, therefore, that obligation should be available to that individual in a form that includes a one-time lump sum payment discounted to the present day, and this option should be made posthaste, for not only will it benefit in particular, those that are struggling, but it will also benefit the economy by virtue of the fact that monies that are spent or invested, now, increases economic activity.
No doubt, the government and critics will argue, that some people having received a one-time lump sum payment will be irresponsible, and thereby will become wards of the state, but what of it, for isn't it their money that the government has put up for their safekeeping in the first place? Those that are of retirement age as defined by Social Security should be permitted to do what they so desire to do with their Social Security money.