Question: Here’s some background for you: my wife and I are both 66 and fully retired. I was the higher earner, maxing out on my Social Security benefit projection. My wife took her Social Security benefit early at age 62. We both recognize this was a mistake that affected opportunities to maximize our joint benefits.
We have hopefully put some strategies in place to allow to us to adjust. I have deferred taking the benefit on my record until some later date (possibly age 70) to grow the benefit 8 percent each year I defer. However, I did a file and restrict/suspend on my record when I turned 66 (in September 2013), and then I filed to start collecting spousal benefits on my wife’s record at that time.
Answer: You surely did not file for your retirement benefit and suspend its collection and also file for your spousal benefit when you reached 66. Had you done so, you would have been given your excess spousal benefit, which would surely have been zero. You surely filed just for your spousal benefit. This is very different from filing and suspending your retirement benefit and filing for your spousal benefit.
I’m emphasizing the distinction, not for you, but for other readers who can make the tragic mistake of mistakenly filing and suspending for their retirement benefit when they are trying to collect a spousal benefit, rather than provide one. Making this mistake then plunges them into “excess benefit hell.”
Social Security can easily trap people into making such mistakes that will cost them tens of thousands of dollars over their lifetimes. I’m not saying that was the intent of its architects (although they surely had to have been aware of this potential), but that’s the impact. And being plunged into excess benefit hell is perhaps the biggest trap.
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