Larry,

I'm 67, female and had to take social security age 62 as I was unemployed and divorced after 23 year marriage. My ex spouse is 3 years younger, age 64 , male. He is single. My question after visiting social security in April is can I ask my divorced spouse to apply and suspend so that I may be entitled to a portion of his higher earnings record now?

Yours, Carol

Carol, your ex doesn't have to do anything for you to collect a divorced excess spousal benefit on his work record. You can suspend your own retirement benefit and collect just this excess spousal benefit and restart your own retirement benefit at 70. The question is whether your divorced excess spousal benefit is positive or whether it's zero? We also need to know if your divorced excess spousal benefit would be zero at 70 were you to suspend your retirement benefit and restart it at a higher value at 70. If it is zero, then suspending your retirement benefit now may make sense. If it's positive, it won't make sense.

I think you should run our software and let it figure out what strategy is best. This is a complex calculation that the program can figure out in a few seconds for you.

best, Larry