My wife worked 20 or so years as a nurse ,obviously paying social security
She then became a self employed real estate agent and did not pay SS for 5 or 6 years. Will she still be able to claim her social security benefits that are due her in the coming months.

Thx

Hi,

You don't mention your wife's age, so I don't know how soon she could potentially qualify for benefits. She would have to be at least age 62 to claim reduced Social Security retirement benefits, and if she files prior to her full retirement age (FRA) her benefits could be subject to withholding if she earns too much (https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/whileworking.html).

That said, it certainly sounds like your wife paid into Social Security long enough to be insured for benefits. You only need to earn 40 quarters of coverage, or the equivalent of 10 years of covered work, to be insured for Social Security retirement benefits. However, it sounds like your wife's benefit rate will be diminished due to the limited number of years that she apparently paid Social Security taxes. Social Security retirement benefits are based on an average of a person's highest 35 years of wage-indexed earnings (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10070.pdf), and if you have less than 35 years of Social Security covered earnings then zero earnings years are included in the average. That obviously drags down the average, which in turn lowers the person's benefit rate.

Your wife may want to strongly consider using our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to determine her likely benefit rate depending on when she starts drawing benefits, and to explore and compare her various filing options in order to determine the best strategy for claiming her benefits.

Best, Jerry