Ask Larry

Why Can't My Husband Collect A Spousal Benefit?

Like the software. two things noticed the output were different than my expected should I ran it using spreadsheet:

1. My son was born 1/2001. If we start my husband's pension this year, my son will get child SS till he graduated from high school 6/2019 or he start college 9/2019. the report I got had Andrew's collect 0 for 2019

2. My husband start collect this year when he is 62. I'm still working and plan to start collect mine when I'm 70 (10/2029). based on the report my husband should be able to get spouse benefit based on my record which is more than he can get if he start collect this year (62). However, the report keep using his own SS amount, not using half of mine (which is bigger). Wondering is this mistake of the software, or he's not allowed to take spouse benefit when able?
would appreciate clarification on these 2 on our reports

Hi, We are including the month of birth and the month of graduation in our software and calculations and will have the program upgraded for this in a couple of weeks. Right now we are making an approximate calculation based on the year of birth of the child.

Under the new law, your husband can't collect only collect an excess, not a full spousal benefit and a) you need to be collecting your retirement benefit and b) the excess spousal benefit needs to be positive. In addition, whenever he takes his spousal benefit (which will be calculated as his excess spousal benefit), he'll need to take his retirement benefit. And he'll need to take his excess spousal benefit as soon as possible once he has taken his own retirement benefit.

Best, Larry

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Posted: 
Sep 17 2016 - 11:30pm
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