I am turning 65, am one year older than my wife, and have had significantly more earnings over our lifetimes. Given our years of birth (1953, 1954) our plan is for my wife to file at 65 for benefits, and I will file at the same time (66) for restricted benefits so I can get the spousal benefit while my benefit continues to grow. Then when I turn 70, I will switch to my benefit, and my wife will switch to the spousal benefit. My question is this. What happens if I die before 70? Can my wife then change her filing from her benefit to the survivor benefit? And what happens if she dies before I turn 70? Can I then switch to my benefit rather than her survivor benefit (which would be very low)? Thank you very much!

Hi,

Your basic plan sounds good, but just to clarify your wife can't exactly switch to spousal benefits when you file on your own record. What she could then do is file for an additional spousal benefit that would potentially be added to her own reduced retirement rate.

For example, say Jane files for her retirement benefits at age 65 in order to enable her older spouse to receive spousal benefits. Jane's full retirement age rate (PIA) is $800, but her reduced rate at age 65 is $746. Jane then files for spousal benefits when her husband files on his own record at age 70. Jane's spousal rate would be calculated by subtracting her own PIA from 50% of her spouse's PIA. So, if Jane's spouse's PIA was $2000 for example, Jane's additional spousal benefit would be $200 (i.e. $2000/2 - $1000). This partial spousal benefit would then be added to Jane's own reduced rate to give her a combined benefit rate of $946.

Getting back to your question, though, if you follow your plan and then die before age 70, your wife could then file for a widow's benefit. Her widow's rate would be calculated by subtracting her own reduced retirement rate from the full benefit rate that you would have received had you started drawing your own benefits in the month of your death. This means that if you died at age 68 for example, your wife would then receive a combined benefit rate equal to your age 68 retirement rate inclusive of the 16% increase that you would have earned from delayed retirement credits (DRC) up to that time (https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/delayret.html).

On the other hand if you were following your plan and your wife died between the time that you were ages 66 & 70, you would have the option of drawing either widower's benefits at a rate equal to your wife's reduced retirement rate, or switching to your own record. Of course if you switched to your own record prior to age 70, you would be forfeiting the additional DRCs that you could have earned between then and age 70.

In order to be sure that you and your wife are choosing the best possible filing strategy, you may want to strongly consider using the maximization software available on this website.

Best, Jerry