Can DW's SS Benefits Increase When I File? (55, spouse, retired)
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This has probably been addressed here before but I've spent an hour searching older threads and can't find the answer. I retired last year but have not started drawing SS, planning on waiting until FRA. DW started taking her SS benefits when she turned 62 a couple of years ago. When I start drawing my benefits at 66, can she get her benefits increased up to half of mine?
No , if she filed early there is always a penalty .what she gets depends on whether half your full is more than her full as well how old she will be when you file.
In practice she always keeps her her early benefit and gets the difference between 1/2 your full less her full added to her early benefit so it is always less than half. To get half she would have had to been fra when she filed for her own.
If you both are not fra than you both get reduced.
Last edited by mathjak107; 02-17-2018 at 10:44 AM..
No , if she filed early there is always a penalty .what she gets depends on whether half your full is more than her full as well how old she will be when you file.
In practice she always keeps her her early benefit and gets the difference between 1/2 your full less her full added to her early benefit so it is always less than half. To get half she would have had to been fra when she filed for her own.
If you both are not fra than you both get reduced.
To calculate spousal you need the full fra benefit of your wife.. also how old the wife is when you file matters.
My wife is older than me so while she filed at 62 for her benefit by the time i filed at 65 she was fra. If she was not fra yet there is a calculator on the ss website to see how much more of a reduction there would be
So you take 1/2 yours which is 1600 and subtract her full of 1500.00 and add the 100 dollars difference to her early benefit amount. She will get 1300 and you 3200. She never sees 1/2 yours since she filed early
What was interesting was my wife filed at 62 . So technically she was deemed filing for spousal under the new rules.
But since i did not file until she was fra she was not collecting any spousal.
I expected us to see a double cut since i filed early and she started at 62. But that is not how they look at . She was fra by the time i filed at 65.
So they just took 1/2 my full and subtracted her full and added it to her early benefit.
So her benefit can never be 1/2 mine though since she always starts with her own early benefit
ok so doing the math lets say...
she filed for he own early benefit at 62 at $500 a mo. you hadn't filed yet so no spousal incl.
you file for yours slightly early at age 65 of $1100
1/2 of $1100 is $550.
So now she gets $50 added onto her own benefit of $500 for a total of $550 mo?
Not quite. My fra is at 66 so if i take ss early the amount of spousal is still based on what my full would have been not what i am getting. As long as the spouse receiving spousal is fra when spousal kicks in it is always based on subtracting 1/2 the higher fra amount from the lower fra amount and adding the difference to the lower early benefit.
If both are taking it early there is a calcultor because the formula is different
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