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Key Points You Should Know About The Social Security Spousal Benefit
Can a non-working wife collect Social Security retirement income based upon her husband's earnings? Yes, a spouse can collect a Social Security spousal benefit if the following requirements are met:
1. The wife needs to be at least age 62
2. The husband will need to be eligible to receive benefits, hence he must also be at least age 62. Furthermore, the husband is required to actually apply for Social Security retirement benefits for his wife to collect based on his income. The husband may then elect to postpone collecting benefits. This course of action is known as "file and suspend".
To give you an illustration, if the wife is 62 and the husband is 58, the wife can begin receiving benefits calculated on her earnings, but she can't receive benefits based on her husband's earnings until he becomes 62 and starts collecting his own benefits.
Having said that, if the wife is age 66 and her spouse is 62, then the wife can start collecting as determined by her husband's earnings (remember, the husband will need to sign up for his Social Security benefits before the spouse will be able to collect based on his income).
In both cases shown above, the wife can begin collecting benefits based on her own income as soon as she turns age 62 (assuming she has more than 40 quarters of earnings and also qualifies for benefits on her own), then she can switch to one half of her husband's benefit when her husband qualifies for Social Security.
A number of areas to consider before applying for benefits:
If a wife applies for her Social Security spousal benefit as determined by her husband's income when she reaches full retirement age (age 66 for individuals retiring now), then she'll receive half of her husband's primary insurance amount (PIA). However, if she starts receiving benefits at age 62, then her benefit will be reduced to just 35% of her husband's PIA.
It doesn't benefit the spouse to wait until after reaching full retirement age to apply for benefits, as spousal benefits will not include delayed credits. In addition, it will not help the wife if the husband waits to apply for benefits because she won't get any boost in benefits that he receives by waiting to collect benefits.
Where a spouse reaches full retirement age and becomes eligible for the spousal benefit or her own benefit, she may start receiving the spousal benefit now and postpone receiving her own benefit so she can accumulate delayed credits on her own benefit.
An individual can collect Social Security spousal benefits based on an ex-spouse's income as long as you were married for a minimum of ten years and you are also at this time unmarried. If you have more than one ex-spouse which you meet the requirements for spousal benefits, you'll receive the maximum benefit you are entitled to. One edge that divorced spouses have over married spouses is the fact that a divorced spouse does not have to wait around for a former husband to start receiving benefits as long as the couple is divorced for at least 2 yrs when she applies.
As a final point, the Social Security retirement program is gender neutral, so despite the fact that this article assumes that the wife is usually the one applying for spousal benefits, if the wife makes more than the husband, the husband can apply for Social Security benefits based on his wife's earnings.
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