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Don't Overlook The Social Security Spousal Benefit



Can a non-working spouse receive Social Security benefits based on her husband's earnings? Yes, a spouse can collect a Social Security spousal benefit if the following requirements are met:

1. The wife is required to be at least age 62

2. The husband will need to be eligible to receive benefits, so he should also be at least age 62. What's more, the husband must actually apply for Social Security retirement benefits for his wife to collect based on his income. The husband may then elect to delay receiving benefits. This course of action is referred to as "file and suspend".

To give you an illustration, if the wife is 62 and the husband is 59, the wife can begin receiving benefits calculated on her own income, but she is unable to collect based on her husband's earnings until he becomes 62 and starts collecting his own benefits.

Having said that, if the wife is age 66 and the husband is only 62, then the wife can start collecting as determined by her husband's earnings (remember, the husband will need to sign up for benefits before his spouse can collect based on his income).

In both instances shown above, the wife can begin receiving benefits calculated on her own income at age 62 (assuming she has as a minimum 40 quarters of earnings and also qualifies for benefits on her own), then she can change over to half of her husband's benefit as soon as her husband qualifies for Social Security.

A couple of areas to take into account before applying for benefits:

If a wife applies for her Social Security spousal benefit as determined by her husband's earnings when she attains full retirement age (age 66 for folks retiring now), then she will receive half of her husband's primary insurance amount (PIA). However, if she applies for her spousal benefit at age 62, then her benefit will be reduced to just 35% of her husband's PIA.

It does not help the spouse to wait until after reaching full retirement age to apply for benefits, as spousal benefits do not include delayed credits. In addition, it won't help the wife if the husband waits to apply for benefits because she won't get any increase in benefits that he gets by waiting to receive benefits.

If a spouse reaches full retirement age and becomes qualified to apply for the spousal benefit or her own benefit, she may start receiving the spousal benefit now and postpone taking her own benefit in order to accumulate delayed credits on her own benefit.

You can collect Social Security spousal benefits based on an ex-spouse's income so long as you were married for not less than ten years and you are also currently unmarried. In case you have more than one ex-spouse which you qualify for spousal benefits, you'll receive the largest benefit you are entitled to. One edge that divorced spouses have over married spouses is that a divorced spouse doesn't need to wait around for a former husband to apply for benefits as long as the couple is divorced not less than 2 yrs when she applies.

As a final point, the Social Security retirement program is gender neutral, so while this article has assumed that the wife is generally the one applying for spousal benefits, if the wife earns more than the husband, the husband can apply for Social Security benefits based on his wife's earnings.

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