When It Comes to Claiming Spousal Benefits, Timing Is Everything

Recently I received a question from a reader that opens up all sorts of concerns shared by many couples:

I am four years older than my husband. I have reached my full retirement age (66) in June 2014. My own benefit is very small ($289/month), since my husband is the bread earner. I have been mostly a stay-at-home mom.

Should I just claim my own benefit now and wait four more years for my husband to reach his full retirement age, then apply for spousal benefits? That means he will get about $3,000/month, and I will get half of his benefit.

Or should my husband apply for early retirement now, at age 62, so I can apply for my own spousal benefits? He can then suspend his benefit and wait four more years until his full retirement age to get more money.

Please advise.

First, your husband should not apply for early retirement at 62. If he does so, his benefit will be reduced by 25% from what he would get if he waits until age 66 to file, and a whopping 76% less than if he waits to age 70, when his benefit would hit its maximum.

Further, if he does file at 62, he cannot file and suspend, as you suggest. This ability is not enabled until he reaches his full retirement age of 66. So if he files early, he will be triggering reduced benefits for the rest of his life. And because his benefits are set to be relatively large, this reduction would involve a lot of money.

If your household absolutely needs the money now, or if your husband’s health makes his early retirement advisable, he could file early and then, at 66, suspend his benefits for up to four years. They would then grow by 8% a year from their reduced level at age 62 – better than no increase, but not nearly as large a monthly benefit as if he simply files at age 66 and then suspends.

I normally advise people to wait as long as possible to collect their own benefits. But this is probably not the best advice in your case. Here’s why:

When your husband turns 66 in four years, it’s clear that you should take spousal benefits based on his earnings record. You say he would be entitled to $3,000 a month at that point and that you stand to get half of that, or $1,500 a month. That $3,000 figure seems a little steep to me, so I’d first ask you to make sure that is his projected benefit when he turns 66 and not when he turns 70.

In either event, however, it’s clear that your spousal benefit based on his earnings record is going to be much, much higher than your own retirement benefit. Even if you waited to claim your own retirement benefit until you turned 70, your spousal benefit still would be much higher.

Thus, you’re only going to be collecting your own retirement benefit for four years, from now until your husband turns 66. Even though your own retirement benefits would rise by 8% a year for each of those four years, those deferred benefits would never rise enough to come close to equaling the benefits you will get by filing right away.

So, take the $289 a month for four years, and have your husband wait until he’s 66 to file for his own retirement benefit and enable you to file for a spousal benefit based on his earnings record. He may decide to actually begin his retirement benefits then or, by filing for his benefit and then suspending it, earn annual delayed retirement credits of 8% a year, boosting his benefit by as much as 32% if he suspends until age 70.

If he does wait until 70, he will get his maximum monthly benefit. But you also will benefit should he die before you. That’s because your widow’s benefit would not just be equal to your spousal benefit but would equal his maximum retirement benefit. So, the longer he waits to file, the larger your widow’s benefit will be.

Philip Moeller is an expert on retirement, aging, and health. He is an award-winning business journalist and a research fellow at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. Reach him at moeller.philip@gmail.com or @PhilMoeller on Twitter.

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