My birth date is 3/2/49 and my current plan is to wait until I am 70 to take SS benefits. My wife's birth date is 3/18/56. What is the best strategy for optimizing our total SS benefits?

Hi,

Your plan to wait until age 70 to file is a good start. Your wife's full retirement age is 66 & 4 months, so she will either want to apply then or at age 70, depending on how her own retirement benefit amount compares to yours. If her own full retirement age benefit is significantly less than one-half of your full retirement age benefit, she would likely want to apply at full retirement age.

In order to better understand all of your options, you may wish to consider running the maximization software available on this website.

Best, Jerry