How The Social Security Spousal Benefit Works

Can a spouse collect on her husband's social security if she reaches retirement age before her husband? No. In order for a wife to start receiving Social Security benefits on her husband's income the following conditions need to be satisfied:

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

2. The husband must be eligible for benefits, hence he must also be at least age 62. Additionally, the husband has to actually apply for Social Security retirement benefits in order for his wife to collect based on his earnings. The husband may then decide to delay collecting benefits. This strategy is known as "file and suspend".

To provide you with an illustration, if the wife is 62 and the husband is 60, the wife can start receiving benefits based on her own earnings, but she cannot collect based on her husband's income until he turns 62 and starts receiving his own benefits.

However, if the wife is age 66 and the husband is only 62, then the wife can begin collecting as determined by her husband's income (remember, the husband will need to apply for his Social Security before the spouse will be able to collect based upon his income).

In both cases shown above, the wife can begin receiving benefits based on her own earnings as soon as she turns age 62 (assuming she has at least forty quarters of earnings and also qualifies for benefits on her own), then switch to half of her husband's benefit as soon as her husband becomes eligible for Social Security.

A number of points to take into consideration before applying for benefits:

If a wife applies for her Social Security spousal benefit as determined by her husband's income when she becomes full retirement age (age 66 for folks retiring now), then she'll receive half of her husband's primary insurance amount (PIA). On the other hand, if she applies at age 62, then her benefit will only be 35% of her husband's PIA.

It doesn't help the spouse to wait until after reaching full retirement age to apply for benefits, as spousal benefits will not include delayed credits. What's more, it does not benefit the wife if the husband delays applying for benefits because she will not get any increase in benefits that he will get by waiting to collect benefits.

When a spouse reaches full retirement age and is qualified to apply for the spousal benefit or her own benefit, she may start collecting the spousal benefit now and hold off taking her own benefit in order to build up delayed credits on her own benefit.

A person can collect Social Security spousal benefits determined by an ex-spouse's income if you were married for a minimum of 10 years and you are at present unmarried. Should you have more than one ex-spouse that you meet the criteria for spousal benefits, you'll receive the highest benefit you qualify for. One advantage that divorced spouses have over married spouses is the fact that a divorced spouse doesn't have to wait for a former husband to make an application for benefits as long as the couple is divorced for at least two years when she applies.

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

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