I am 71 and my wife is 66. I have been collecting regular SSA at the reduced rate of course since 62. My wife still works and she does not collect. It appears that her spousal benefit is 50 percent of what my benefit would have been had I waited to collect at 66 as opposed to half of what I actually get. Is this correct? What is the logic?

Dear Sir,

Logic? The entire edifice of Social Security rules and rules within rules was devised by lawyers in Congress and actuaries in the Social Security Administration over many years who constructed a thing of beauty and internal logic in their minds, but a nightmare and injustice for people of common sense. Is it, for example, fair that someone can lose tens of thousands of dollars by being born a second too late or divorcing a minute too early or not knowing to apply for a survivor benefit their deceased spouse had bought with a lifetime of payroll taxes -- all because they didn't know the benefit was available?

The system has many good intentions, but is a relic of the past and needs to be frozen in place and replaced with a modern version that is extremely simple, user friendly, fully funded (not 31 percent underfunded), actually progressive (which the current system is not), and sustainable. The book at www.kotlikoff2016.com lays out an incredibly simple reform for achieving this end.

Now let me address your question. I don't know the precise logic if there is any on the computation of spousal benefit. The only think I can guess is that what the non-working wife would receive would be independent of when the working husband collected so as not to affect his decision and not to make her benefit dependent on his choice. I wrote this intention in non sex-neutral terms because these provisions were set into place at a time when sexism was standard of the day. Many people, including many women, felt the woman's place was at home bringing up the kids, not in the work place. Those women who did work had a very tough time advancing and dealing with a very macho culture. The series, Madmen, captured this culture very well.

If your wife was 62 or over on January 2, 2016, she can wait till 66 and take just her spousal benefit and then at 70 take her own retirement benefit. If she wasn't, she will be forced to take her retirement benefit whenever she files for her spousal benefit. In this case, she'll just get the larger of the two benefits. If this is her retirement benefit, which is likely to be the case if she has been a pretty good earner, she will never collect a spousal benefit. This is one of the nasty features included in the new Social Security rules initiated by the President and adopted in the most stringent fashion by Congress in November. The President claimed that the rich were engaged in aggressive collection strategies. I don't call asking for what you paid for aggressive, but that was his language in his budget request for 2015. But, to my knowledge, and, frankly, my knowledge is pretty good on this subject, most people who were trying to collect a spousal or divorced spousal benefit between full retirement age and 70 were low- and middle-income households. This is a case of knee-jerk Democrats letting Republicans with a dislike for Social Security take a pickaxe to the system.

My best, Larry