Can A Married Couple Both Draw Social Security?

Married couples have Social Security options

With only a little planning, you and your spouse tin make the most of your Social Security benefits.

POINTS TO KNOW

Coordinating your benefits with your spouse'due south benefits tin assistance you both get the nearly out of your Social Security payments.
In some cases, it makes sense for both spouses to merits on the same spouse's earnings record.
Many couples employ a "split strategy," which ways they begin claiming at dissimilar ages. It might be worthwhile for the college earner to await longer to collect.

Start with benefits estimates for you lot & your spouse

Your first step in maximizing your Social Security benefits should be to visit the Social Security Administration (SSA) website.

Who's the higher earner?

Compare the estimates for you and your spouse, and pay special attention to the difference betwixt your estimates. The college earner is the spouse with the larger master insurance amounts (PIA).

When you're deciding who volition collect showtime and who should wait, consider having the lower earner collect first and having the higher earner expect. Over fourth dimension, the college earner'southward increases volition exist worth more than than the lower earner's increases.

And if one spouse'due south estimates are more than twice as loftier equally the other's, information technology might brand sense for both of yous eventually to collect on the aforementioned spouse'south earnings record.

In that situation, the spouse with the lower benefits can claim get-go based on his or her own earnings tape and utilize for spousal benefits later on when the spouse with the higher benefits starts to collect.

The longer the spouse with the higher do good waits to offset collecting, the college benefits will be for both spouses. Delaying the college earning spouse's benefits could too eventually increment the other spouse's survivors benefits.

Factors that could reduce your payments

Before you plug your Social Security estimates into your retirement plan, be sure to adjust those estimates if any of these factors employ to encounter how much you might actually end upwards with.

Figure out the all-time time for you and your spouse to claim Social Security

As you consider the correct time to start collecting Social Security, remember that if you determine to filibuster, you can revisit that determination as often as you'd like.

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Anyone who's paid Social Security taxes for at least 10 years can start to receive retirement benefits as early every bit historic period 62 based on his or her own earnings record. A married spouse without an earnings record (or whose record would result in a lower Social Security payment) tin collect on his or her spouse's earnings record when his or her spouse turns 62.

Collecting Social Security at 62 has some advantages. For example, you may be ready to retire and counting on Social Security as the cornerstone of your retirement plan. Subsequently all, if you lot've paid Social Security taxes for x years, so yous're entitled to Social Security benefits.

If yous or your spouse has serious health problems or a family history that suggests you may not live long plenty to profit from waiting, collecting early might make the most sense for you. Just recall that if the higher earner delays, the surviving spouse'due south survivors benefits could also increment.

On the other hand, the earlier you start to collect, the less you lot'll receive each calendar month. Just if you starting time to collect and then modify your mind, you take two options.

The "reset" rule

Within 12 months of starting to collect, you tin can "reset" your benefits to erase the reduction, but you must repay all of the benefits y'all and your family earned.

See how it works: The "reset" rule

The voluntary suspension rule

If you started collecting before your full retirement age (FRA), y'all tin can suspend your benefits at FRA and restart them after.

See how it works: Voluntary suspension

If you start collecting Social Security retirement benefits at your total retirement age (FRA), you'll receive 100% of your primary insurance amount (PIA). But call up that you can collect more than 100% of your PIA by waiting beyond your FRA.

Yous'll earn an extra 0.67% each month that y'all delay your Social Security benefits by your FRA. That'south an extra 8% for each year that you wait past FRA … and what other investment can guarantee an eight% almanac increase?*

Since information technology'south unlikely that you and your spouse were born on the same day, the two of you will stagger your offset dates if you both collect at your respective FRAs.

If you're planning on staggering your showtime dates anyhow, consider delaying the higher earner'south start date beyond his or her FRA, since the higher earner'southward payments volition increment by a higher percentage as a result of waiting.

If you or your spouse (or fifty-fifty both of yous!) can await until you're 70, y'all'll receive your highest Social Security payments—upwardly to 132% of your primary insurance corporeality (PIA) if your full retirement age (FRA) is 66, and 124% of your PIA if your FRA is 67.

Even if married couples first collecting on the same engagement, they're almost always different ages. Claiming at different ages is called a "split strategy."

Think that the longer y'all wait, the more yous'll receive—that'south truthful for everyone. And if yous decide that one of yous volition wait longer than the other to first collecting, it makes more sense for the higher earner to wait.

In other words, the carve up strategy that many couples use is to take the lower earner collect starting time for as long as the couple can manage their finances on 1 Social Security payment. Then, when the higher earner begins to collect, his or her payments will have increased more than than the lower earner'southward would have, and the surviving spouse's survivors benefits would too increase.

Encounter how it works: Divide strategy

An advanced claiming strategy (if one spouse reached 62 by 2015)

If you or your spouse reached age 62 by the end of 2015, you authorize for a Social Security challenge strategy chosen restricted application.

Here'due south how it works: The younger spouse (who doesn't need to take turned 62 at the end of 2015) claims Social Security benefits based on his or her own earnings record.

When the older spouse (who must have been 62 at the end of 2015) reaches full retirement age (FRA), he or she files a restricted application for spousal benefits only. At that indicate, both spouses are claiming benefits based on the younger spouse's earnings record.

And so, at age 70, the older spouse claims benefits based on his or her own earnings record, which take increased to 132% of what that spouse would've been eligible for at FRA.

See how it works: Restricted application

What'south next?

Social Security provides more than simply retirement benefits. And the federal government offers more than just Social Security benefits. Every bit you put your retirement plan together, check to see whether you qualify for other government benefits, such every bit family and children services, tax assist, and active armed forces or veterans benefits.

Employ for Social Security

You can file for Social Security benefits online, over the phone, or in person at a local Social Security Administration function.

You may demand to produce these documents when you employ

Your Social Security card.
An original nativity certificate or other proof of your birth.
A re-create of your West-2 course or self-employment tax return for the previous twelvemonth.
Your marriage certificate.
If you lot weren't born in the Usa, proof of U.Southward. citizenship or lawful alien status.

A Vanguard advisor tin can help

If you're struggling with making your all-time Social Security decision, we can aid. You'll also go a custom financial plan, ongoing portfolio direction, investment coaching, and real-time goal tracking—all at a low cost.

Your Social Security guide

Factors affecting payments

Your retirement

Your best Social Security strategy

More than Aid

Build your Social Security strategy

Read our Social Security brochure

Source: https://investor.vanguard.com/retirement/social-security/strategies-for-married-couples

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