My wife will be 62 in September 2017 and does not work outside of the home. She does have a modest amount of Social Security benefits coming from old employment. I am 59 and still working with a high paying job. I believe she should begin taking her benefits at 62 and if I retire at 62 myself, which is possible, I could file and her benefits would go up as well as a percentage, not 50% I understand, of my benefits as her spousal benefit. We really do not actually need the benefits, but I am unsure of the whole Social Security situation and would therefore like to get what I can as early as I can. By the way I have figured that my "make more" point between filing at 62 and at full retirement is 78.5 years old! I just want your opinion and to be sure that I am correct in my analysis of our ability to file this way. Thanks

Hi,

You have to make your own decisions with regard to when to start drawing, but unless you have health issues that will limit your maximum ages of life, Larry's advice would likely be for your wife to file on her record at her full retirement age of 66 & 2 months, and for you to wait until age 70 to file. Your wife could then file for an excess spousal benefit when you file for your benefits. To learn more about Larry's philosophy, click on the Ask Larry Topic link titled 'Break Even Analysis'.

You should be aware that if you take your benefits early, not only will your own benefit rate be reduced for life, most or all of the reduction will also carry over to your wife's potential widow's benefit rate. If you instead wait until age 70 to start drawing, your wife's widow's benefit rate would include the delayed retirement credits that you would earn by waiting until age 70 to apply.

Before deciding on when to apply, you and your wife may want to strongly consider running the maximization software available on this website.

Best, Jerry