benefits for wife when husband getting full benefits (spouse, insurance, calculator)

[jrhudson]

i will be getting aprox. 2100 a month next September when i turn 66 which is my full retirement age. my wife will be 65 and 3 months at that time. she has never worked but i was told she will get half of what i get if she waits till 66 also. my question is if she takes hers at 65 and 3 months does anyone have an estimate of what she would get. im just not sure if she would really be penalized under this scenario. thank you

[rjm1cc]

She will get a little less. Try the SS site as they might let you do an estimate.

Les say she get 95% of what she would get at 66. Once she is 66 she will still only get 95% of what ever benefit she is entitled to.

[reed303]

Assuming your FRA start of benefits at Sep 2016, and spouse's birthday in Jun 1951, the SSA has on-line calculator at https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/quickcalc/spouse.html that "will tell you the effect of early retirement on your spousal benefit as a percentage of the worker's primary insurance amount"

Using the info above, it says:
"You choose to receive benefits 9 months before normal retirement age. Your benefit will be 46.88 percent of the worker's primary insurance amount." So the "penalty" is 3.12%

" You" in this case means the spouse. So if yours is $2100, hers should be $984.48

[jrhudson]

reed- thank you very much. I really appreciate you taking the time to research this for me. thanks again