When will my younger wife get spousal benefits - based on my FRA or age 70 amount?
I'm currently 67 and still enjoying my career as a civil engineer, so I'm planning to delay claiming my Social Security retirement benefits until I hit 70. My wife is quite a bit younger at 52 and works as a teacher. Based on her earnings history, her own Social Security benefit will probably be less than half of mine when she retires. I'm trying to plan ahead and understand how her eventual spousal benefit would work. Would she receive half of my full retirement age (FRA) benefit or half of my age 70 benefit (with the delayed retirement credits)? Also, does her age when she claims make a difference to the spousal amount? I've heard conflicting information about this and want to make sure we optimize our household benefits.
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Aisha Mohammed
Your wife's spousal benefit will be based on your Primary Insurance Amount (PIA), which is your benefit at your full retirement age, not your age 70 amount with delayed retirement credits. So regardless of when you claim, her spousal benefit maximum would be 50% of your FRA benefit amount. And yes, her age absolutely matters. If she claims spousal benefits before her own full retirement age (which will be 67 for her), those benefits will be permanently reduced. For example, if she claims at her earliest eligibility age of 62, her spousal benefit would be about 32.5% of your PIA instead of the full 50%.
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Luca Ricci
•Thank you for the clear explanation. That's disappointing that she won't get half of my increased benefit at 70, but I understand now. So just to confirm - even though I'm waiting until 70 to claim, when she eventually claims spousal benefits, they'll be based on what my benefit would have been at 66 and 6 months (my FRA)?
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Ethan Campbell
This might be a silly question but does your wife need to wait until she's 62 to even apply for spousal benefits? I'm in a somewhat similar situation (tho I'm the younger spouse) and I'm confused about all these rules.
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Aisha Mohammed
•Not a silly question at all! Yes, the earliest anyone can claim spousal benefits is age 62 (unless they're caring for a child under 16 or disabled, which has different rules). And importantly, you cannot claim spousal benefits until your spouse has actually filed for their own retirement benefits. So in this case, his wife would need to wait until both she is at least 62 AND he has filed for his retirement benefits.
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Yuki Watanabe
Something else to consider - since your wife is a teacher, does she work in a state with a government pension? Many teachers participate in pension systems that don't pay into Social Security. If that's the case, her spousal benefits could be reduced by two-thirds of her government pension under the Government Pension Offset (GPO). This catches many teachers and their spouses by surprise when planning for retirement.
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Luca Ricci
•That's an excellent point I hadn't considered. She's been teaching in California for the past 15 years, and they do have a separate pension system. I'll need to look into this GPO issue more carefully. This might significantly change our planning.
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Carmen Sanchez
My husband and I were in almost the exact situation except I was 54 when he was 67. We found out the hard way about the teacher pension offset thing! Definitely check that out carefully.
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Andre Dupont
I swear the SS website is impossible to navigate when you're trying to plan for specific situations like this. I waited on hold for 3 hours last month trying to get answers about my own spousal benefit questions and then got disconnected!!!
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Zoe Papadakis
•I had the same frustrating experience but then found Claimyr.com which got me connected to a real SSA agent in under 10 minutes. They basically call SSA for you and connect you once they reach an agent. There's a video that shows how it works: https://youtu.be/Z-BRbJw3puU I was skeptical at first but it saved me hours of hold time when I needed to sort out my wife's survivor benefits after dealing with endless busy signals and disconnects. Definitely worth it for complex questions that the website doesn't answer clearly.
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ThunderBolt7
soemthing else to keep in mind is that she has to wait until YOU file for benefits before she can get the spousal benefit. so if your waiting till 70 she cant get anything until then. my wife and i had to adjust our plans when we learned this!!
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Aisha Mohammed
•That's correct. The higher-earning spouse must file for their own benefits before the lower-earning spouse can receive spousal benefits. This is why retirement timing coordination is so important for couples with significant age differences.
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Ethan Campbell
Wait im confused again...so her benefit is based on his FRA amount but she cant get it until he actually files at 70? Is that right?
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Yuki Watanabe
•Yes, exactly. The amount is calculated based on his FRA benefit (not his age 70 increased amount), but she cannot begin receiving ANY spousal benefits until he actually files for his own retirement benefits. So if he waits until 70 to file, she cannot receive spousal benefits until that point, regardless of her age. And remember, she needs to be at least 62 to claim spousal benefits anyway (unless caring for a young or disabled child).
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Luca Ricci
I really appreciate all the helpful responses. This is much more complicated than I initially thought! Based on what I'm learning here, we need to consider: 1. Her spousal benefit will be based on my FRA amount, not my age 70 amount 2. She can't claim spousal benefits until I actually file (at age 70 in my plan) 3. By then she'll be 55, so still too young to claim anything 4. When she does claim at 62+, she'll get a reduced amount if before her FRA 5. We need to investigate the Government Pension Offset since she's a California teacher Lots to think about. I may need to reconsider my plan to delay until 70 since it seems our household total might not be as high as I was calculating.
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Yuki Watanabe
One other factor to consider: When your wife reaches her retirement age, the SSA will give her the larger of either her own retirement benefit or the spousal benefit she qualifies for. She doesn't get both. So if her teacher career ends up giving her a Social Security benefit that's more than half of your FRA amount, the spousal benefit would be irrelevant. If the GPO applies though, it could significantly reduce or eliminate any spousal benefits. Definitely worth contacting SSA directly to get a personalized analysis of your situation. They can do calculations specific to your earnings records.
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Luca Ricci
•That makes sense. I think we'll definitely need to speak with an SSA representative about our specific situation, especially with the pension complications. I appreciate the detailed advice.
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Carmen Sanchez
Since she's only 52 now any planning you do is just rough estimates anyway. The rules might change by the time she's old enough to claim anything!
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