Social Security Spousal Benefits: One More Key To The Social Security Decision
When can a husband or wife begin collecting his or her Social Security spousal benefit? A wife can begin receiving Social Security spousal benefits only when the following conditions are satisfied:
1. The spouse applying for the spousal benefit must be at least age 62
2. The husband must be eligible to receive benefits, consequently he must also be at least age 62. Furthermore, the husband must actually sign up for Social Security retirement benefits in order for his wife to receive benefits based on his income. The husband may then decide to postpone receiving benefits. This course of action is known as "file and suspend".
To provide you with an illustration, if the wife is 62 and the husband is 60, the wife can begin collecting benefits calculated on her earnings, but she cannot receive benefits based on her husband's earnings until he turns 62 and starts receiving his own benefits.
Having said that, if the wife is 66 and the husband is 62, then the wife can start receiving based on her husband's earnings (remember, the husband needs to sign up for his benefits before his wife can collect based upon his income).
In both examples mentioned above, the wife can begin collecting benefits calculated on her own income as soon as she turns age 62 (assuming she's got at a minimum 40 quarters and qualifies for benefits on her own), then she can switch to 1 / 2 of her husband's benefit when her husband qualifies for Social Security.
Some areas to take into account before applying for benefits:
If a wife applies for her Social Security spousal benefit based on her husband's earnings when she reaches full retirement age (age 66 for folks retiring now), then she will collect half of her husband's primary insurance amount (PIA). However, if she applies at age 62, then her benefit will only be 35% of her husband's PIA.
It does not help the spouse to apply after her full retirement age, as spousal benefits don't include delayed credits. In addition, it won't benefit the wife if the husband waits to apply for benefits because she will not receive any rise in benefits that he gets by waiting to collect benefits.
If a spouse reaches full retirement age and is qualified to receive the spousal benefit or her own benefit, she may claim the spousal benefit now and postpone receiving her own benefit in order to accumulate delayed credits on her own benefit.
You can collect Social Security spousal benefits determined by an ex-spouse's income if you were married for at least ten years and you are at this time unmarried. If you have more than one ex-spouse that you qualify regarding spousal benefits, you will receive the maximum benefit you are entitled to. One edge that divorced spouses have over married spouses is that a divorced spouse doesn't need to wait for a former husband to start receiving benefits as long as the pair has been divorced for not less than 2 yrs when she applies.
Finally, the Social Security retirement system is gender neutral, so even though this article assumes that the wife is the one applying for spousal benefits, if the wife earns more than the husband, the husband can sign up for Social Security benefits based on his wife's earnings.