Can I switch to spousal Social Security benefits after marriage when partner's SS is much higher?

Yes, you could potentially receive spousal benefits after marriage, but there are some important details to understand. Since you're already past your Full Retirement Age (FRA), you wouldn't face any reduction for filing early. As a spouse, you could receive up to 50% of your husband's Primary Insurance Amount (PIA), but this would be offset by your own benefit. Essentially, if 50% of his benefit is higher than 100% of your current benefit, you'd get the difference added to your current payment. You can apply for the spousal benefit immediately after marriage - there's no waiting period for eligibility once you're legally married. Just contact SSA with your marriage certificate once you're married.

my neighbor JUST did this!!! got married at 70 and got HUGE increase in her ss check the very next month!!! she had to bring marriage certificate to ss office. don't wait!!! get that $$$ girl!

I went through this exact situation two years ago. After getting married, I immediately called Social Security to apply for spousal benefits since my husband's record was much higher than mine. They told me I needed to bring in our marriage certificate and complete form SSA-2 (Application for Wife's or Husband's Insurance Benefits). The whole process took about 6 weeks before my new combined benefit started arriving. The best part was they retroactively paid me back to the month after we got married! One thing to remember - you'll still get your own benefit plus the difference between that and 50% of his PIA. In your case, if 50% of his benefit is $1,300, you'd get your $875 plus $425 for a total of $1,300. It really helped our budget significantly.

If I were you I'd just stay boyfriend/girlfriend. My sister got married to her longtime boyfriend and her benefits got all messed up cuz he had a pension and then something about WEP or GPO kicked in and she actually LOST money. Not saying that will happen to you but sometimes the government makes things complicated!

I spent HOURS trying to get someone at Social Security on the phone about a similar question last month. Called for 3 days and kept getting disconnected or waiting forever. I found this service called Claimyr that got me connected to a real person at SSA in about 10 minutes - https://claimyr.com. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/Z-BRbJw3puU. After I finally got through, the agent explained everything clearly and I got my spousal benefit situation sorted out. Definitely recommend calling rather than trying to figure this out online.

One thing no one has mentioned yet - after you get married, when your new husband passes away (hopefully many years from now), you would be eligible for 100% of his benefit as a widow, which would replace your smaller benefit. So the marriage not only helps now with the spousal benefit but provides important protection for the future.

dont forget u have to stay married for at least 10 years to get divorced spouse benefits!!! my friend didnt know this and got divorced after 9 years and got NOTHING!!

I think theres something called "restricted application" that lets u get spousal benefits and let ur own keep growing??? My friend's brother did this and got HUGE checks later. U should ask about that!!!!!

Thanks everyone for the helpful information! I'm definitely going to go ahead with applying for spousal benefits after we get married. Just to make sure I understand correctly: I'll continue to receive my current benefit plus the difference to make it up to 50% of his benefit, and there's no waiting period to apply once we're married. I'll make sure to bring our marriage certificate to the SSA office. And I appreciate the reminder about survivor benefits too - that gives me peace of mind for the future.