The steady increase in full retirement age for Social Security has resulted in people working longer and not claiming their benefits early, according to new research by the Congressional Budget Office.

According to CBO data, the full age at which people can retire has risen from age 65 for people born before 1943 to age 67 for those born after 1960. In a recent blog post by Joyce Manchester, chief of the long-term analysis unit in the health, retirement and long-term analysis division of the CBO,  she said that raising the full retirement age (FRA)  forced people to delay claiming their Social Security benefits.

"That delay occurred in part because the FRA acts as a signal about when to claim benefits and also because the increase in the FRA meant that if a person started collecting benefits at age 65, those benefits would have been smaller than they would have been without the increase in the [full retirement age]. As a result, people tend to work longer on average when the FRA increases," she said.