When can a spouse start receiving his or her Social Security spousal benefit? A wife can begin collecting Social Security spousal benefits only after the following conditions are satisfied:
1. The spouse applying for the spousal benefit needs to be at least age 62
2. The husband will need to be eligible to receive benefits, therefore he should also be at least age 62. Additionally, the husband will have to actually sign up for Social Security retirement benefits for his wife to receive benefits based on his income. The husband may then decide to postpone receiving benefits. This course of action is called “file and suspend”.
To provide you with an illustration, if the wife is 62 and the husband is 59, the wife can begin receiving benefits calculated on her income, but she cannot receive benefits based on her husband’s income until he becomes 62 and starts receiving his own benefits.
On the other hand, if the wife is age 66 and her spouse is only 62, then the wife can start receiving calculated on her husband’s income (remember, the husband will have to submit an application for his benefits before his spouse will be able to collect based upon his income).
In the illustrations mentioned above, the wife can begin collecting benefits calculated on her own income as early as age 62 (assuming she's got a minimum of forty quarters of earnings and also qualifies for benefits on her own), then change to 1 / 2 of her husband’s benefit as soon as her husband qualifies for Social Security.
A few areas to take into account before applying for Social Security spousal benefits:
If a wife applies for spousal benefits calculated on her husband’s income when she attains full retirement age (age 66 for individuals retiring now), then she'll collect half of her husband’s primary insurance amount (PIA). On the other hand, if she starts collecting benefits at age 62, then her benefit will be reduced to just 35% of her husband’s PIA.
It doesn't help the spouse to wait until after reaching full retirement age to apply for benefits, as spousal benefits don't include delayed credits. Additionally, it does not benefit the wife if the husband waits to apply for benefits because she won't get any rise in benefits that he gets by waiting to collect benefits.
When a spouse gets to full retirement age and becomes qualified to apply for the spousal benefit or her own benefit, she may start collecting the spousal benefit now and hold off collecting her own benefit in order to accumulate delayed credits on her own benefit.
A person can collect Social Security spousal benefits determined by an ex-spouse’s income so long as you were married for a minimum of ten years and you are also presently unmarried. Should you have more than one ex-spouse which you meet the criteria regarding spousal benefits, you'll get the maximum benefit you are entitled to. One benefit that divorced spouses have over married spouses is the fact that a divorced spouse doesn't have to wait around for a former husband to make an application for benefits as long as the pair is divorced not less than 2 yrs when she applies.
As a final point, the Social Security retirement program is gender neutral, so although this article has assumed that the wife is usually the one applying for spousal benefits, if the wife earns more than the husband, the husband can apply for spousal benefits based on his wife’s earnings.
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