I am 61 retired physician. My younger wife is 43 and my twins are 8 years old.
My wife has no/negligible earnings contribution to social security.
I have enough savings not to tap into Social security until age 70.
However, I am considering applying for early retirement benefit and then suspend till age 70, and applying for my minor children, and spouse under childcare benefits. Will social security allow this or will it deem that I take early retirement benefit as well? Thank you

Hi. No, they won't. If you apply for early retirement benefits the earliest that you could voluntarily suspend your benefits is when you reach full retirement age (FRA). Furthermore, if you voluntarily suspend your benefits then no auxiliary benefits can be paid to your eligible family members while your benefits are suspended (https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/claiming.html). So, as long as your living there's no way that your wife and children could collect benefits from your Social Security record unless you are drawing your benefits.

What you'll need to decide is whether you feel it's better to start drawing benefits early at a reduced rate so that your wife and children can collect auxiliary benefits, or wait until age 70 in order to get your maximum possible monthly benefit rate. You could choose to start drawing anytime between age 62 and 70, so there are many different options to consider.

One important factor to consider is the effect that collecting early would have on your wife's survivor benefit rate should you die before her. As a widow, your wife could be paid up to 100% of the benefit rate that you were receiving, so waiting until age 70 to start collecting your benefits could mean a higher survivor benefit rate for your wife.

It sounds like you should strongly consider using our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to fully analyze and compare all of your options so that you can decide on the best filing strategy for maximizing benefits for your family.

Best, Jerry