I plan on retiring next June when I am a month shy of age 70 and plan to switch from ex spousal benefits that I started collecting 2 years ago to my own benefits. My benefits are subject to windfall as I am. cA public school teacher. Am I actually lowering my benefits by waiting to 70? I recently read something to that effect.

Hi,

You can't lower your benefit amount by waiting until age 70 to file, but you may not gain anything if your own retirement rate after any applicable WEP (https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/wep.html) reduction is lower than your divorced spousal benefit amount. You can only receive the higher of the two rates, so there may be no reason to apply on your own record unless that benefit rate will be higher than your divorced spousal rate.

However, the kicker is that there is a Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision that may reduce or wipe out your divorced spousal benefit once you start receiving your teacher's pension (https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/gpo-calc.html). You may want to strongly consider running the maximization software available on this website in order to determine your best course of action. The software is programmed to handle both WEP and GPO, so it should be able to help you determine your best filing strategy.

Best, Jerry