my mom did exactly what ur talking about! she took her own benefit at 62 (it was like $1450/month) and then when she hit full retirement age she switched to my dads survivor benefit which was around $2200. worked out great for her. the social security people actually suggested it when she went in to apply after dad died.

One thing nobody's mentioned - you should create your my Social Security account online if you haven't already. You can see estimates of both your own benefit and your survivor benefit there. Makes it much easier to compare numbers and figure out the best strategy. Plus you can actually apply online which avoids the nightmare phone system.

Thank you all for the helpful responses! I just spoke with my husband and showed him all this information. We're going to apply this week but make sure his start date is set for April when he reaches FRA. So grateful for the warning about making sure they don't backdate his application - we wouldn't have thought of that! It's such a relief to know he can continue his part-time schedule without worrying about penalties. The Social Security website makes this all seem so much more complicated than it needed to be.

The REAL problem here is that Social Security's rules are needlessly complicated and their website explains things terribly. I had to read books and hire a financial advisor just to figure out the best way to claim. And don't even get me started on their calculators...

Back to the original question - one thing no one mentioned is that if your husband filed for spousal benefits before 70, he wouldn't even get the full spousal amount because he'd be filing early for his spousal benefit. So not only would he permanently reduce his own benefit, but the spousal benefit for those 5 months would be reduced too. Double penalty!

Thanks everyone for your helpful responses! I think we have our answer - my husband should just wait until he turns 70 in September 2025 to file for his benefits and not try to get spousal benefits during those 5 months. It's disappointing that we can't take advantage of this small window, but I understand it's more important to maximize his lifetime benefit. I appreciate all the information!

One thing to keep in mind about HR 82 - even if it doesn't pass in its current form, there are other compromise bills that might help your situation. The Public Servants Protection and Fairness Act would create a new formula that would give relief to many WEP-affected retirees, especially those with many years of substantial covered earnings like you have. Additionally, you might want to check if any of your county employment was actually covered employment. Some county positions do pay into Social Security alongside their pension system. This would increase your years of substantial earnings and potentially further reduce your WEP penalty.

That's interesting about the compromise bill. I'll look into that too. As for my county job, I'm pretty sure we didn't pay into SS because they specifically mentioned that when I was hired - they said it was a Section 218 issue or something like that. But I'll double-check my old pay stubs to make sure.

One important detail: the GPO only affects spouse/survivor benefits, not your own earned Social Security benefits. So if you worked enough in Social Security-covered jobs to qualify for your own SS retirement (40 quarters/10 years), you would receive those benefits without GPO reduction. It's specifically the benefits based on your spouse's record that get reduced.

Have you spoken with anyone at CalSTRS about this? When my mother-in-law went through something similar (CA teacher, husband died), a CalSTRS counselor helped her understand all the implications and provided some resources. They can't change the federal law, but they're often more knowledgeable about how it intersects with their pension system than general SSA reps are.