Spousal Benefits: Applying For Social Security Benefits

Can your spouse collect on your social security if she reaches retirement age before you do? No. In order for a wife to collect Social Security benefits on her husband's income several conditions need to be met:

1. The spouse applying for the spousal benefit is required to be at least age 62

2. The husband needs to be eligible to receive benefits, so he should also be at least age 62. Also, the husband needs to actually sign up for Social Security retirement benefits in order for his wife to receive benefits based on his income. The husband may then elect to delay receiving benefits. This course of action is known as "file and suspend".

To provide an example, if the wife is 62 and the husband is 61, the wife can begin receiving benefits calculated on her own income, but she won't be able receive benefits based on her husband's income until he turns 62 and starts receiving his own benefits.

Then again, if the wife is age 66 and the husband is only 62, then the wife can start receiving based on her husband's income (remember, the husband needs to sign up for benefits before his spouse will be able to collect based upon his earnings).

In the instances stated above, the wife can begin receiving benefits calculated on her own income as soon as she turns 62 (assuming she's got no less than forty quarters of earnings and also qualifies for benefits on her own), then she can switch to half of her husband's benefit once her husband qualifies for Social Security.

Some items to take into consideration before applying for benefits:

If a wife applies for her Social Security spousal benefit as determined by her husband's earnings when she becomes full retirement age (age 66 for individuals retiring now), then she'll collect 50% of her husband's primary insurance amount (PIA). On the other hand, 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 will not include delayed credits. On top of that, it does not benefit the wife if the husband waits to apply for benefits because she won't get any increase in benefits that he will get by waiting to collect benefits.

Where a spouse gets to full retirement age and is qualified to receive the spousal benefit or her own benefit, she may apply for the spousal benefit now and postpone taking her own benefit in order to accumulate delayed credits on her own benefit.

An individual can collect Social Security spousal benefits calculated on an ex-spouse's earnings if you were married for not less than ten years and you are also currently unmarried. For people with more than one ex-spouse which you meet the requirements pertaining to spousal benefits, you will get the largest benefit you are entitled to. One edge that divorced spouses have over married spouses is that a divorced spouse does not need to wait around for a former husband to start collecting benefits as long as the pair has been divorced for 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 usually the one applying for spousal benefits, if the wife makes more money than her husband, the husband can sign up for Social Security benefits based on his wife's earnings.

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