My husband and I both were 66 in January 2019. I am retired and started collecting my full Social Security benefit in January. My husband is still employed and wants to continue working until 70 or longer.. He wants to collet his maximum Social Security benefit at 70. We were told that since I started collecting my SS that my husband could get spousal benefits on my SS at 50%. This would not change the amount due to my husband at age 70 on his SS benefit if he gets spousal benefits on my Social security. I am not sure if this is true or you can even catch what I am asking but please give me any advise you might have on this question.
I called Social Security and they said we could not collect spousal benefits. I just wanted to make sure this is correct.

Hi,

No. Since you're drawing your Social Security retirement benefits and since your husband has reached his full retirement age (FRA) of 66 and hasn't yet applied for his own Social Security benefits, he can file a restricted application for just spousal benefits only while allowing his own benefit rate grow until age 70. If a Social Security employee told you something different, then they're mistaken. Filing for spousal benefits only will have no adverse effect on your husband's own Social Security retirement benefit rate at age 70. Those benefits will still grow by 8% per year until he reaches age 70 even if he's drawing spousal benefits on your record.

By the way, only people born before January 2 1954 have the option of filing just for spousal benefits at FRA while allowing their own retirement benefit rate to grow until age 70 (https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/deemedfaq.html). Your husband can apply for spousal benefits up to 6 months after the month he reached FRA and still potentially claim benefits back to that month. So, since you apparently claimed your benefits effective with January 2019 and since your husband reached FRA that month, it sounds like your husband would want to file as soon as possible and choose January 2019 as his month of election to start spousal benefits. You and your husband may want to strongly consider using our software first, though, to make sure that you'd be choosing the best possible overall strategy for claiming your benefits.

Best, Jerry