An often voiced concern in recessions is that unemployed older workers claim Social Security earlier than they would have had in the absence of job loss, and that this leads to lower Social Security benefits and hastens permanent withdrawal from the labor force. Another important question that has found less attention is whether workers rely on employment at older ages to make up losses in earnings from displacement. In this study, we present new estimates of the effect of job displacement on the age of claiming Social Security benefits for workers displaced close to retirement age and workers displaced in prime working age. Using longitudinal administrative data covering 30 years, we isolate workers who left their stable job in the course of a mass layoff during the early 1980s recession, and follow labor supply near retirement age and Social Security claiming for workers displaced at different ages. We find that workers displaced near retirement age experience a substantial decline in employment and a significant rise in the incidence of early claiming. However, claiming early does not insulate these workers from reductions in Social Security benefits due to substantial declines in earnings after job loss. In contrast, workers displaced in middle age work about as much at older ages and claim later than the control group of workers that were not displaced. Extending their working life allows these workers to recover some of the lifetime loss in earnings. Since a large fraction of workers is subject to costly job loss during their life course, this underscores the importance of facilitating work at older ages.