Larry, I am 57-year-old married Army retiree receiving a full Army retirement and a VA disability. I have twin fully disabled sons as my wards who live with us and each receives SSI with a slight offset as a VA 'helpless' child designation. They will never be able to work. My 55-year old wife has worked full-time for more than 40 quarters but quit full-time work 10 years ago to take care our disabled sons. She currently works part-time. We both are healthy and I plan to work past 70 (I'm an online adjunct professor). When would it be best for my wife and me to take out our SSA benefits and how do our two boys factor into any benefits and decision?

Hi,

One important consideration is that your sons' SSI benefits will be reduced essentially dollar for dollar by any Social Security benefits they receive. So, if their Social Security benefit rates are higher than their SSI rates, their SSI payments will stop when the Social Security payments start.

When to start drawing is a personal choice that you and your wife will need to make for yourselves, and you have various interrelated filing options that are too numerous to cover in this forum. You may want to strongly consider using the maximization software available on this website in order to compare all of your options and determine the best overall filing strategy for you and your family.

Best, Jerry