Spousal Social Security Benefits - Strategy to Maximize Your Benefits

Although many of the complicated strategies around Social Security regarding spousal benefits have been eliminated, there are still options to consider regarding when to begin your, or your spousal, benefits with Social Security.
In this webinar we covered common questions we receive about Spousal Social Security benefits, and strategies to maximize your benefits.

Topics include:
- Scenarios when it makes sense for one spouse not to delay their benefits.
- The negative impact of beginning your benefit early, even if you qualify for spousal benefits.
- Claiming benefits available to you from an ex-spouse.

We cover 3 examples of common mistakes we see with spousal social security benefits claiming strategies.

Select Webinar Transcripts:

Before we get into specific examples, a couple points related to spousal social security benefits to clear up that can potentially lead to some confusion.

The rules around Social Security and spousal benefits in particular changed drastically in 2015 that impact those who were born after January 1st, 1954.

There used to be more option for spouses that allowed you be to eligible to receive additional benefits or made more people eligible for spousal benefits.

We won’t go into detail on these, but prior to this law change in 2015 there were multiple ways to get spousal benefits while still being allowed to delay your own, or without requiring you to begin your benefits.

So, if you have heard from a friend or family member who was able to do some more complex Social Security planning around their spousal benefits, that may be why.

And also, just a note that if you were born before January 1st 1954, you may have more options available. But, we’re not going to go through all of those in this webinar since they are more complex and would turn this into a much longer webinar. If you were born before January 1st 1954 and don’t have a strategy for Social Security, reach out and we can help.
Also, Social Security benefits get more complicated if your spouse or ex-spouse passes away.

Spousal Social Security is different than Survivorship benefits

And in this webinar as we mention spousal benefits, it is not the same as survivor benefits that apply if your spouse has passed.

Like with the slide before, if your spouse has passed away it opens up many different options that we are not going to cover here.
Spousal Benefits are Based on Your Full Retirement Age
And lastly, all the calculations for spousal benefit rely on you and your spouse’s full retirement age benefit. Depending on when you were born this is probably between age 66 and 67.

And so a good start to knowing if spousal benefits will come into play with you is be sure you find this information for both of you. If you haven’t looked at a Social Security statement in a while, you can access your most recent statement at this link here.

Spousal Social Security Calculation
So how exactly does a spousal benefit get calculated?

What is important to understand is that the Social Security Administration calculates what is called a maximum spousal benefit.

The calculation for this is taking half of your spouses benefit, and then subtracting your full retirement age benefit.

The calculation for this is taking half of your spouses benefit, and then subtracting your full retirement age benefit.

This is the most that Social security will pay you. This max benefit does not change if you or your spouse delay Social Security past your full retirement age, or if you or your spouse claim benefits early before full retirement age.