If you’re worthy for Social Security spousal benefits, how much you’ll receive depends on a number of factors, including your age, the amount of your spouse’s advance, and whether you have other retirement benefits available to you.
Who’s eligible? Anyone whose spouse, ex-spouse, or deceased spouse was or is qualified for benefits, once you have reached the age of eligibility is eligible.
The maximum amount you can receive is 50% of your spouse’s crowded benefit. That’s straightforward enough, but the precise amount you’ll get and when you’ll get it depends on several circumstances, including your spouse’s age and implement history, your own age and work history, and more.
That leaves some room for you to maximize the amount you receive. And, muse on, if that amount is less than the amount you’d get based on your own work history, you’ll automatically.get the higher amount.
Unworthy of, you’ll find out if you qualify for Social Security spousal benefits and how to find out the amount you’ll get. And, you’ll learn the fate of a couple of once-popular spousal improves loopholes in the Social Security rules. (Hint: It’s not good news.)
Nevertheless, if you know the rules highlighted in this article, you’ll be competent to maximize your Social Security spousal benefits.
Key Takeaways
- The maximum spousal benefit is 50% of the other spouse’s fully benefit.
- You may be eligible if you’re married, formerly married, divorced, or widowed.
- You can collect spousal benefits as early as age 62, but in most happenings, the benefits are reduced permanently if you start collecting early.
- If your own work history earns a higher benefit, you’ll accept that amount rather than the spousal benefit.
- In 2015 the federal government changed the rules on filing for Common Security spousal benefits, eliminating some claiming strategies that allowed couples to increase their betters.
Who Qualifies for Social Security Spousal Benefits?
If your spouse has filed for Social Security benefits, you can also pile up benefits based on the spouse’s work record, if:
- You are at least 62 years old.
- Regardless of your age, if you care for a child who is named to receive benefits on your spouse’s record, and who is under age 16 or disabled.
When you apply for spousal benefits, you inclination also be applying for benefits based on your own work history. If you’re eligible for benefits based on your own earnings, and that sake amount is higher than your spousal benefit, that’s what you’ll get. If it is lower, you’ll get the spousal benefit.
How Spousal Helps Are Calculated
Spousal benefits are based on how much the other spouse would receive if that person began summon up benefits at the full or “normal” retirement age.
The Social Security Administration has an online calculator that can show you what portion of your spouse’s benefits you will be eligible for depending on your own age when you start receiving benefits.
The short rejoinder to the calculation is this: You’re eligible for half of your spouse’s benefit amount as long as you wait until your detailed retirement age to apply. The earlier you file, the less you’ll get.
Full Retirement Age
As you might expect, “normal” retirement age is becoming newer in life, but the changes to the Social Security rules are being phased in. It is age 66 for those born between 1943 and 1955. It expansions gradually to age 67 for those born from 1955 to 1960. For those born after 1960, it’s 67.
A Social Guarantee online calculator shows you the percentage of your spouse’s benefits you will get, based on your age when you apply.
A Social Guarantee online calculator shows you the percentage of your spouse’s benefits you will get, based on your age when you apply.
No meaning when your spouse actually retires, or if your spouse dies, that person’s “normal” benefit amount is apt to you in calculating your spousal benefit entitlement.
Claiming Early or Late
Your spousal benefit is based upon your participant’s “normal” benefit amount. But the amount you receive will depend upon when you begin to claim it.
You can claim spousal aids as early as age 62, but you won’t receive as much as if you wait until your own full retirement age. For example, if your full retirement age is 67 and you decide to claim spousal benefits at 62, you’d receive a benefit that’s equal to 32.5% of your spouse’s full forward amount.
The amount increases with each year you delay. At your full retirement age (67 in this pattern) you’d be eligible for the maximum, which is 50% of your spouse’s full benefit.
Note that spousal benefits are not curtailed if the spouse is caring for a child who qualifies under the age or disability rules.
Spousal benefits can never exceed 50% of the other spouse’s full gain. So, there is no incentive to file for spousal benefits later than your own full retirement age.
An ex-spouse may be eligible for spousal promotes even if the former spouse hasn’t retired yet.
An ex-spouse may be eligible for spousal promotes even if the former spouse hasn’t retired yet.
If You’re Receiving Other Retirement Benefits
The calculation gets a bit more complex if you are eligible to receive benefits from a government pension or foreign employer that is not covered by Social Security. In that suit, you may still be eligible, but the amount will be reduced.
For example, if you have a government pension for which Social Security taxes are not retained, the amount of your spousal benefit is reduced by two-thirds of the amount of your pension. This is known as a government subsistence offset.
For example, suppose you are eligible to receive $800 in Social Security spousal benefits and you also get $300 from a domination pension each month. Your Social Security payment is reduced by two-thirds of $300, or $200, making your aggregate benefit amount from all sources $900 per month ($800 – $200) + $300).
Same-Sex Married Couples
Same-sex married match ups have enjoyed the same rights as all other couples since the 2015 Supreme Court ruling affirming their constitutional rights to hook-up recognition. And that means they’re eligible for Social Security spousal and dependant benefits.
Social Security also recognizes some non-marital proper relationships such as civil unions and domestic partnerships.
The Social Security site urges spouses to apply for helps if they think they may be eligible.
Divorced and Widowed Spouses
The rules for Social Security spousal benefits for detached and widowed people are complex in order to cover all conceivable circumstances.
Spousal Benefits for Divorced Spouses
If you’re divorced, you may be available for spousal benefits based on your ex-spouse’s work record. The rules are much the same, plus:
- Your integration must have lasted for at least 10 years.
- You must currently be unmarried.
If your former spouse hasn’t organized for benefits yet, you can still file for spousal benefits if you have been divorced for at least two years.
If your ex-spouse is placid living, in most cases you must be at least 62 years old and your spouse must be old enough to qualify for profits. (Whether the ex-spouse is actually taking benefits or not doesn’t matter.)
If your ex-spouse has died, your benefits are alike resemble to those of a widow or widower.
Spousal Benefits for Widows and Widowers
A widow or widower can receive up to 100% of a spouse’s fringe benefits amount. That’s if the survivor has reached full retirement age at the time of the application.
The payment is reduced to somewhere between 71% and 99% of the deceased’s entitlement if the widowed ourselves is at least 60 but under full retirement age.
Disabled people can apply as early as age 50. The agency has a streamlined attentiveness stick-to-it-iveness process to avoid delays in the first payment.
You may be eligible for benefits even if your spouse died long first reaching retirement age. Every employee racks up annual Social Security “credits” for working. If your spouse grossed credits for at least 10 years, a spousal benefit has been earned.
It’s important to note that it pays to cradle off until you reach your “full” retirement age to maximize the amount you will receive.
Also, if you are receiving spousal fringe benefits and your spouse dies, you need to notify Social Security. Your spousal benefit of 50% of your mate’s benefit will convert to a survivor benefit of 100%.
And do it promptly. It’s not usually retroactive.
Spousal Benefits Loopholes
You may hear or study about other ways to increase the amount of your spousal benefit. Unfortunately, under new Social Security oversees, two popular strategies have been abolished.
The File and Suspend Strategy
Prior to 2016, workers could document for benefits (making their partners eligible to claim spousal benefits), then suspend their own benefits in fraternity to maximize their credits for deferred filing. This so-called file and suspend strategy meant that a lower-income husband could take advantage of spousal benefits while the primary earner accrued delayed retirement credits, thereby increasing their gain amount.
However, this “have your cake and eat it, too” loophole was closed with the
Strategies for Maximizing Spousal Extras
Every married couple has to figure out the best way to maximize their benefits depending on their own circumstances.
The three procedures below will help you make the most of your Social Security spousal benefits, depending on your circumstances. Notwithstanding, keep in mind that, regardless of your circumstances, the most a spouse can get is 50% of the amount that the higher-earning helpmeet is entitled to at full retirement age.
1. Strategy for Late Claimers
If one partner has little or no earnings history, the best strategy is for the wage earner to put on the back burner applying for Social Security retirement benefits until age 70 to get the
Social Security Spousal Benefits FAQs
Here are the solutions to a few questions that come up frequently.
How Do Social Security Spousal Benefits Work?
You’re eligible for spousal benefits if you’re bond, divorced, or widowed and your spouse is or was eligible for Social Security. Spouses and ex-spouses generally are eligible for up to half of the spouse’s entitlement. Widows and widowers can gather up to 100%.
You can claim benefits based on your own work history or on that of your spouse. You’ll automatically get the larger amount. (It’s one or the other. You don’t get both.)
If you are no sundry than three months away from age 62,
The Bottom Line
Maximizing your spousal Social Security helps is all about the timing, and the timing is determined by your circumstances as a couple.
If both partners work, they should consider what each partner’s individual benefit will be. Unless one partner earns massively more than the other, it settle upon probably pay for both to file individually, waiting at least to full retirement age, if not to age 70, if possible.