Your Social Security benefits won’t cover all your expenses in retirement, but understanding how the program works and what levers you have to influence your checks can help you stretch your savings further. For married couples, one of the most important things they can do is to coordinate their claiming strategy.
If your spouse decides to sign up before you, you need to know how that will affect your future benefits, so you can estimate how much of your retirement expenses you’ll have to pay on your own. The answer depends on which kind of benefit(s) each of you plans to claim over the long term.
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It won’t affect your Social Security benefit
When your spouse signs up for Social Security first, they’ll receive the retirement benefit they’ve earned based on their work history. This depends on how much they’ve paid in Social Security payroll taxes throughout their career and their age at sign-up.
Their retirement benefit is completely unlinked to yours. Yours will be based on your own work history. When your partner decides to claim, it doesn’t change your retirement benefit. But when you apply could.
You can claim as early as 62, but you’ll get substantially smaller checks if you sign up then. Every month that you wait to apply increases your benefit until you qualify for your largest checks at age 70.
It opens the door for you to claim a spousal benefit
Married couples are also eligible for a spousal Social Security benefit if their partner qualifies for a retirement benefit. This is worth up to one-half of the benefit your spouse qualifies for at their full retirement age (FRA). This is 67 for most workers today, those born after 1960.
You can’t claim a spousal benefit until your partner has signed up. If your spouse is already claiming, when you eventually apply, the Social Security Administration will automatically check whether your retirement benefit or your spousal benefit is larger. You’ll only get one or the other.
If your spouse applies first and they want to switch to a spousal benefit on your work record, they’ll have to wait until you’re ready to apply for benefits. Then, they’ll need to reach out to the Social Security Administration to see whether the move would give them more money than what they’re currently receiving. If it would, they’ll start to receive a spousal benefit going forward.
It will lock in your survivor benefit
Survivor benefits are the benefits you’re entitled to after your partner has passed away. They can be worth up to 100% of the benefit your spouse was receiving or eligible for at the time of their death. But again, if you’re already claiming a retirement benefit that’s larger than the survivor benefit you qualify for, you’ll keep your retirement benefit instead.
While your spouse applying for Social Security early doesn’t affect the size of your spousal benefit, it can permanently reduce the survivor benefit you’re eligible for after they’re gone. This is something worth thinking about in situations where one partner has a terminal illness and the other may be highly dependent on Social Security after they’re gone. The ill spouse may choose not to claim Social Security at all to increase the survivor benefit their family receives after they die.
There’s nothing wrong with one spouse claiming ahead of another spouse, as long as you and your partner are on the same page and you understand the consequences of this move. Set aside some time to talk through all of your options, and keep each other in the loop if one of you decides to change the plan down the road.
