My wife and I are the same age. My wife started receiving SS benefits at age 62. I started receiving SS benefits at age 65, three years later when I retired. At that time I asked if my wife could apply for the spousal benefit. We were told if she applies then, her benefit around would increase by $150 but if we waited a year until we were both 66 for her to apply, her benefit would increase by $300. The year has passed and we went to apply for the spousal benefit and we are waiting for the decision on it. We weren't given any reason to be confident she will get an increase. The SS agent said we should have applied last year. I said we did but were told to wait a year if we wanted a higher benefit amount. Every time we go to the SS office, we get a different answer on the same subject. Should we get the $300 increase? or if it was misinformation what do we do about it?

Hi,

I have no idea how much of a spousal benefit your wife will get, if any, but since she was apparently born prior to January 1 1954 it's true that if she qualifies for an excess spousal benefit her rate would be unreduced if she waits until her full retirement age (FRA) to start drawing the spousal benefit. If she had started drawing an excess spousal benefit before FRA her rate would have been reduced for age.

For example, say June filed for her Social Security retirement benefits at age 62 in 2015. June's primary insurance amount (PIA), which is the amount that she would have received if she had waited until FRA to claim her retirement benefits, is $1000, but she gets a reduced rate of $750 in return for starting at age 62. When June turns age 65 in 2018, her husband files for his Social Security benefits and he has a PIA of $2400. June's unreduced excess spousal benefit would be calculated by subtracting her PIA from 50% of her husband's PIA, which in her case is $200 (i.e. $2400/2 - $1000). If June waits until her FRA to claim the excess spousal benefit, the unreduced rate of $200 would then be added to her own reduced rate to give her a combined benefit amount of $950. However, if Jane starts drawing her excess spousal benefit at age 65 her rate would be reduced to $183, making her combined rate $933.

Best, Jerry