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How You Can Make The Most Of The Social Security Spousal Benefit
Can your spouse collect on your social security if she reaches retirement age before you do? No. In order for a wife to collect Social Security benefits on her husband's income the following requirements need to be met:
1. The spouse applying for the spousal benefit must be at least age 62
2. The husband will need to be eligible to receive benefits, so he should also be at least age 62. What's more, the husband needs to actually sign up for Social Security retirement benefits in order for his wife to receive benefits based on his earnings. The husband can then decide to delay receiving benefits. This course of action is called "file and suspend".
To offer an example, if the wife is 62 and the husband is 60, the wife can start collecting benefits calculated on her own income, but she is unable to receive benefits based on her husband's income until he turns 62 and applies for benefits.
On the other hand, if the wife is age 66 and the husband is only 62, then the wife can start receiving based on her husband's income (again the husband will have to submit an application for benefits before his spouse will be able to collect based upon his earnings).
In the examples mentioned above, the wife can begin receiving benefits calculated on her own income as soon as she turns 62 (assuming she's got no less than forty quarters and qualifies for benefits on her own), then she can switch to half of her husband's benefit once her husband qualifies for Social Security.
Some areas to take into consideration before applying for benefits:
If a wife applies for her Social Security spousal benefit calculated on her husband's earnings when she becomes full retirement age (age 66 for folks retiring now), then she'll collect 50% of her husband's primary insurance amount (PIA). On the other hand, if she applies at age 62, her benefit will be reduced to just 35% of her husband's PIA.
It does not help the spouse to wait until after reaching full retirement age to apply for benefits, as spousal benefits don't include delayed credits. On top of that, it does not benefit the wife if the husband delays applying for benefits because she will not get any increase in benefits that he will get by waiting to receive benefits.
When a spouse gets to full retirement age and is qualified to receive a spousal benefit or her own benefit, she may start collecting the spousal benefit now and hold off taking her own benefit in order to accumulate delayed credits on her own benefit.
A person can collect Social Security spousal benefits calculated on an ex-spouse's earnings if you were married for at least 10 years and you are also currently unmarried. For people with more than one ex-spouse which you meet the criteria pertaining to spousal benefits, you will get the highest benefit you qualify for. One benefit that divorced spouses have over married spouses is that a divorced spouse does not need to wait around for a former husband to start collecting benefits as long as the pair has been divorced for a minimum of two years when she applies.
Finally, the Social Security retirement program is gender neutral, so while this article has assumed that the wife is generally the one applying for spousal benefits, if the wife makes more money than her husband, the husband can sign up for Social Security benefits based on his wife's earnings.
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