Ask Larry

Is It Correct That I Can Switch To Receive My Own Benefits At Age 70?

My wife is a few years older than me and started taking Social Security benefits at full retirement age. A few years later, when I reached full retirement age, I applied to start Social Security benefits too. During the online sign up process I was asked if I wanted "Spousal Benefits". I replied Yes and now get an amount half of what my wife receives.
Here's my question... I assume(?) my benefits are on hold and when I reach 70 I can switch to receive my own benefits at the inflated maximum value and stop receiving the Spousal benefits. Is that correct? Or have I misunderstood something and/or failed to take important step(s) to make this work as I have described?

Hi,

Assuming that you filed only for spousal benefits and not for both spousal benefits and your own Social Security retirement benefits, then yes your retirement benefit rate will continue to grow until age 70 and you can apply for your own retirement benefits at that time. In that case your spousal benefits would stop when you start drawing your own benefits, assuming that your own retirement benefit rate is higher than your spousal rate.

On the other hand, if you applied for both spousal benefits and your own retirement benefits then you would only receive the higher of the 2 rates and neither rate would continue to grow until age 70. You can only accrue delayed retirement credits (DRC) on your own Social Security retirement benefits between your full retirement age (FRA) and age 70 if you delay applying for your retirement benefits.

By the way, only people born prior to January 2 1954 are allowed to file only for spousal benefits at FRA or later without also being deemed to be filing for their own Social Security retirement benefits at the same time.

Best, Jerry

Category: 
Posted: 
Sep 1 2019 - 7:30am
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