understanding spousal benefits

[mathjak107]

stop the presses ....... just learned something new!

we just got the verification letter for the spousal amount for my wife . it was more than the charts and calculator showed us it would be .

https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/quickcalc/earlyretire.html

it seems it is calculated very differently than the charts and calculator on the ss site if she filed at 62 for her benefit but could not get spousal because i did not file yet . so now that i filed and she is over fra it works very differently .

because she took an early benefit at 62 , but could not get spousal until 67 because i just filed at 65 (she is older) it turns out the calculation is different .

the way it is calculated if she did not get an early spousal benefit too along with hers ,is the following .

she kept her early benefit , but because she was at least fra when spousal kicked in , they take 1/2 my full (even though i filed a year before my fra ) and subtract her full and that difference with no reduction is added to her own early benefit .

had she gotten spousal because i filed before her fra she would have had a reduction on the spousal but because she was fra there was no reduction on the spousal portion too. the only reduction she gets is she keeps her early benefit and the spousal is an adder .

i searched the web to find a similar situation ,where the wife files at 62 but does not actually get spousal because the husband delays until the wife is at least fra and could find nothing .

but then i stumbled upon a kiplinger's article with the same situation .



Maximize the Social Security Spousal Benefit

[oldsoldier1976]

Thank you for the link and the post.

[mathjak107]

there really is no chart , calculator or explanation on the ss spousal benefit page for this .

it was a pleasant surprise to see in the letter that she is getting 313 more a month added to her early benefit instead of the 150 or so we came up with using the chart and calculator on the site .

so that throws another decision in to the mix for those with similar situations since a spouse can take their own benefit at 62 . be deemed filing for spousal ,yet because the other spouse has not filed yet the spousal benefit keeps getting larger as the reduction on the spousal side shrinks , all the while they are collecting an early benefit check ..

[AnnaLee2]

Originally Posted by mathjak107

stop the presses ....... just learned something new!
....


she kept her early benefit , but because she was at least fra when spousal kicked in , they take 1/2 my full (even though i filed a year before my fra ) and subtract her full and that difference with no reduction is added to her own early benefit .

....

When determining this did they use the value of the FRA on the year the individual was first eligible or were the values adjust to the year of the application? (For example, my husband's FRA was in 2012 whereas mine was in 2014. So my FRA numbers could include a couple more COLA adjustments than his.)

[mathjak107]

all is current fra