Question: Do I have to stop taking the spousal benefit on my wife’s record and file for benefits on my record in order for her to collect spousal benefits on my record? I’ve spoken with Social Security agents and confirmed that my benefit will continue to grow and is unaffected by me taking spousal benefits on my wife’s record.
Answer: Yes, for her to collect a spousal benefit — actually, as indicated, an excess spousal benefit — you will need to file now for your retirement benefit. But if you file and suspend your retirement benefit, you won’t enable her to collect anything more. The only thing you’ll do is join her in excess spousal benefit hell and see your full spousal benefit become your excess spousal benefit, which also will surely be zero.
Now for the possibly good news. Your wife can suspend her retirement benefit and start it up again at age 70 at a 32 percent higher value after inflation. Then when you die, she’ll flip onto her widow’s benefit, which will be as large as possible because you will have waited to collect your retirement benefit.
However, it would not make sense for her to suspend her retirement benefit if her excess spousal benefit were actually positive and large enough so as to remain positive when she restarted her retirement benefit at 70. In this case, she’d again get something very small for four years and nothing extra in total after age 70. So she’d end up losing money for four years to no advantage.
What if her excess spousal benefit were positive now, but would be zero after 70? (For you Social Security aficionados, this can happen because the excess spousal benefit is recomputed only after you restart your retirement benefit. And, her excess spousal benefit is computed as half of your Primary Insurance Amount less 100 percent of her PIA, augmented by any delayed retirement credits she accrues by suspending her benefits.) In this case, suspending would let her get her presumably small excess spousal benefits now and a higher total check (consisting just of her retirement benefit) after age 70. This would make suspending worthwhile if her excess spousal benefit were quite small.
Careful software can sort out exactly what she should do at this point.
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