Spousal benefits - SSA / Retirement

[cilla4progress]

A financial advisor I spoke with yesterday let me know that I can apply to receive 50% of my spouse's retirement benefit, along with my own, since his is more than mine and I'm over age 62. It will not reduce my spouse's benefit, or any future retirement benefit. I've heard of this before, but it seems to be a little known secret.

Anyone have any experience with this?

TIA

[Peregrine Took]

1. My niece, an RN, was told she made too much money to collect her spousal benefits.

I think she was making around 75k.

[wolfie001]

19. She can work all she wants

She just needs to pay the extra tax over the $19,560 limit.

[Pachamama]

2. You can also qualify if it's an ex-spouse

As long as you haven’t remarried until 60.

It’s a good thing if 50% of your spouses or ex-spouses SS benefits exceed what your benefits would be.

[cilla4progress]

3. Thank you!

Appreciate the info.

[nitpicker]

8. Just remember if you are still working

If you are under full retirement age for the entire year, we deduct $1 from your benefit payments for every $2 you earn above the annual limit. For 2022, that limit is $19,560.

[NewHendoLib]

4. Yes indeed! We will be doing that.

[Rorey]

5. I'm pretty sure the "along with my own" part isn't so

If half of their amount is more than your own amount, you'll get half of their amount.

I don't think I'm wrong, but I've been wrong before.

[blueinredohio]

11. When my father died my mother got his

social security but she had to give up hers.

[Rebl2]

15. Right

That’s how it works. No double dipping. If she made more money than him during her working life and her SS was higher she would want to keep her own.

[Pachamama]

6. I just re-read your post...

You can’t get your SS benefits in addition to 50% of your spouse or ex-spouse

You can choose only one

[nitpicker]

7. Actually, it could be a combination

https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-02011

Of yours and part of his to reach the 50% spousal benefit.

[cilla4progress]

9. Thanks -

amazing DU hive mind! You never cease to AMAZE me!!

[Tomconroy]

10. My mother did this. She had worked outside the SS system as a teacher.

When my father died she received his full benefit. Might be worthwhile to talk to someone at SS. I think they are pretty helpful and knowledgeable. Don't take my word for it but I think you get a bigger check by delaying collecting up to the age of 66.

[cilla4progress]

12. Wonder how long the phone hold is ...

when I try to apply through the website it won't let me. Likely because I already am receiving my own benefits? Requires "human" intervention....

arghhh...

[in2herbs]

13. At age 62 (2014) I collected my SS and part of husbands. After he died in 2021 I now collect all

his SS earnings but none of mine. When a situation like this comes up the SSA will give you a choice of whether to continue to collect your SS or change over to the amount your (deceased) husband was earning. Collect the higher amount.

If you are discussing a pension and not SS, the amount you are to receive upon his death will be a percentage of what was being paid when he was alive. Payment is conditioned upon a number of other factors including the fact that you and H were not drawing 100% of his pension with no allocation for survivor payments (that means you.)

There is a time limit so make haste and good luck. I found the SSA to be very helpful.

[cilla4progress]

14. Thank you!

Yes, just got off the phone with a friendly, knowledgeable, young (I say young because she has a 3 yo) woman - SSA employee - from the other side of the country, who informed me that my current monthly benefit is more than 50% of husband's, so I don't qualify to receive the spousal benefit.

Should he predecease me, I can apply to receive his benefit, which is higher - just not twice mine - instead of mine.

Thank you!

PS Glad SSA employees get to work from home! Enjoyed my friendly convo with her!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. When I turned 66, in 2014,

I was able to collect 50% of what would be my ex's full benefit were he 66. As it happened, he was just turned 62, but we'd been married more than 10 years, now divorced more than two, and our respective ages met the requirement. Hooray! I collected SS off his account until I turned 70, at which point my own full benefit was several hundred dollars more.

My ex, who will turn 69 later this year, still is not collecting SS on his own. Which is good, from my perspective. It will benefit me the most if he waits until he turns 70, then dies. I will then become one of his two widows, and collect 100% of his SS. Which will again be several hundred dollars more than my current benefit. Alas, his family lives practically forever, well into their 90s. He's some five years younger than I am, and so I'm not likely to outlive him. Darn.

[cilla4progress]

17. Is this because his SS is more than 2x

yours or some such formula?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

18. Yes. It also allowed me to postponed collecting

my own SS until I turned 70, which maximized my own benefit. I believe that option is no longer available.

I depended heavily on the book Get What's Yours by Laurence Kotlikoff, Philip Moeller, and Paul Solman. It outlines all of the basics of SS and then some. It was how I learned I could claim on my ex husband's SS and delay my own claim until I was 70.

Alas, some of those rules have changed.

I think the single best thing of that book is how they emphasize that it's important to maximize, insofar as you can, your payout. So many people get focused on collecting as soon as they possibly can, and never think about the fact that they will probably live a whole lot longer than they think they will. For example, most 65 year old men will live nearly another 18 years, and a 65 year old women will live another 20 and a half years. That's a lot longer than people tend to think. For one thing, they look at life expectancies from the year they were born, and don't understand that those numbers include infant and child mortality, and once you get past any given age, be it one year, five years, sixty years, or more, you will continue to live a whole lot longer.

I keep on seeing various things on line that encourage people to collect SS as soon as possible. For some people, that's a good strategy. For others, not so much.

My specific case is this: I'd been out of the workforce some 25 years while raising children. My SS payout was going to be quite small. Then I got divorced, moved to another part of the country, and re-entered the workforce. I made decent money, but the important thing is that I added about six more years of employment to my record, wiping out that number of zero income years. My predicted SS payout doubled by doing that.

Keep in mind that your SS amount is based on your 35 highest years of earnings. So working as long as you can benefits you. And again, for me, getting back into the workforce for several years made a huge difference.