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So if your spouse does file and suspend before this witching second, you better not turn 62 the way you record your own birthday even a nanosecond after midnight, Jan. If you are divorced after having been married for 10 or more years and turn 62 no later than Jan.
If you are married and you and your spouse are more than four years apart in age, but the younger of the two of you will reach 62 by the end of this year, that younger spouse is still free to file just for a full spousal benefit when he or she reaches full retirement age and still let his or her retirement benefit grow through age This is possible, because the older spouse will be taking retirement benefits by then. If you are married and reach 62 no later than Jan. Whether this is optimal is something only the most precise commercial software can calculate. Make sure that the software program you use has been fully updated since the legislation has passed.
Suppose you are a married younger spouse and that you were born after Jan.
Assume you have very low earnings relative to your spouse so that your spousal benefit will exceed your own retirement benefit even if you wait until 70 to collect it. In this case, you and your spouse have a tricky problem. Your spouse can file for their retirement benefit before reaching 70, say, at On the other hand, by taking their retirement benefit earlier than 70, your spouse can permit you to take your spousal benefit sooner than would otherwise be the case.
Recall, however, that if you take your spousal benefit before full retirement age, it will be permanently reduced. One option, which is likely the best in many cases, is for you to take your own retirement benefit when you reach full retirement age and then take your excess spousal benefit when your spouse reaches age 70 and take their retirement benefit.
But if your spouse has a relatively low maximum age of life, it may be better for you to take your retirement benefit as early as age 62 and have your spouse take their retirement benefit somewhat before age 70 at which point you take your excess spousal benefit. Taking the excess spousal benefit the difference between your full spousal benefit and your own retirement benefit early before full retirement age will permanently reduce it. The new law has made maximizing your Social Security via the correct collection strategies even more complex for many couples.
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For example, you may have filed for your retirement benefit last year, say, at age 62 to activate a child benefit for your disabled child and a child-in-care spousal benefit for your spouse who is caring for your child. But Congress and the President just took that option away.
When you reach full retirement age, if you suspend, both the child and child-in-care spousal benefit will stop until you restart your retirement benefit. Consequently, the advantage of this start-stop-start strategy has been greatly reduced. Still, it may be best to forego those auxiliary benefits for four years in order to have a permanently higher retirement benefit and when you die, provide a permanently higher widow er benefit , starting at This makes suspending your benefit in order to raise it by restarting it at 70 a riskier option.
If you are widowed, nothing has changed with respect to your options to maximize your lifetime Social Security benefits. Your best strategy will be to either a take your widows benefit at 60 or 50 if you are collecting disability and start your own retirement benefit at 70 or, if widowed, at full retirement age, but you can then suspend it until 70 or b take your retirement benefit at 62 and take your widow er benefit at full retirement age or earlier in the case your deceased spouse took their own retirement benefit early.
On the other hand, if your spouse turns 62 by or on Jan. That is, they too are grandfathered. If you are disabled and were expecting to collect excess spousal benefits from your spouse during years that their retirement benefit is in suspension, you can kiss those benefits goodbye unless your spouse was born on or before May 1, and files and suspends.
If you and your spouse were born before or on Jan. The option involves getting divorced two years before you reach full retirement age. Based on your book, my plan had been to take divorcee spousal benefits at age 66 and then my retirement at age I am 62 born in September , was married for 11 years and have been divorced for My ex-husband is not vindictive and is still working at age I expect he will retire in one to two years.
Does the new law mean I cannot take divorcee spousal benefits at 66? Does his filing status affect this? Say you want to start collecting at age The FRA—the age at which you can start collecting without a reduction for early retirement or added credits for delaying—was 65 when Social Security began in A law pushed the FRA to 66 for people born between and and 67 for those born in or later. Without periodic increases in the FRA, Social Security would pay each generation more as a result of longer lives—a financial problem for a system that has to pay for itself over time, he says.
If you have an FRA of 67 and start at 62 and one month, you would get And whatever your first month of benefits, you will actually see the first payment in the following month. If you are approaching retirement after a full career, staying on the job may do surprisingly little to juice your benefit. As you can see in the following graphic, a long-tenured worker who keeps going until 70 vs. For one, your Social Security check is based on your pay in your 35 highest-earning years.
Plus, in doing the math, the salary you earned 20 or 30 years ago is adjusted upward to reflect the climb in average wages over time. While it can be smart to keep working to reap those rich boosts, conversely, if your nest egg is big enough to cover the gap, you could stop work sooner than expected but still start Social Security later. Retiring in your sixties simply may not be feasible for you, especially if you took breaks from the workforce that are depressing your eventual benefits.
If so, you may be among those who can get a noticeable boost to your Social Security from continued labor. With fewer than 35 years of earnings, staying on the job could make a big difference because your average includes years of zero pay. You can see that in the graphic above, which looks at two hypothetical year-olds dubbed Ida and May, after Ida May Fuller, the first person to collect a monthly Social Security retirement check.
To isolate the payoff for continued work alone, not delayed claiming, we assumed each woman would start Social Security at age 70, regardless of when she stopped work. And she would see her check grow even if some of her work was part-time. It can also help if you had many years of low wages but are now making close to or more than the maximum pay on which Social Security tax is collected. One final thought on Social Security math: You generally need to have worked for 10 years to qualify for a benefit on your own record.