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When can a husband or wife begin receiving his or her Social Security spousal benefit? A wife can begin collecting Social Security spousal benefits only when the following requirements have been met:

1. The wife needs to be at least age 62

2. The husband must be eligible for benefits, consequently he should also be at least age 62. Also, the husband is required to actually sign up for Social Security retirement benefits for his wife to collect based on his income. The husband can then decide to postpone receiving benefits. This course of action is known as "file and suspend".

To offer an illustration, if the wife is 62 and the husband is 59, the wife can begin collecting benefits based on her income, but she won't be able receive benefits based on her husband's income until he becomes 62 and starts collecting his own benefits.

However, if the wife is 66 and her spouse is only 62, then the wife can start receiving calculated on her husband's earnings (remember, the husband must submit an application for his Social Security before his spouse will be able to collect based upon his income).

In both cases above, the wife can start collecting benefits calculated on her own income as soon as she turns age 62 (assuming she's got as a minimum 40 quarters of earnings and qualifies for benefits on her own), then change to 1 / 2 her husband's benefit once her husband qualifies for Social Security.

A number of points you should take into consideration before applying for benefits:

If a wife applies for her Social Security spousal benefit calculated on her husband's income when she becomes full retirement age (age 66 for folks retiring now), then she'll collect half of her husband's primary insurance amount (PIA). However, if she starts receiving benefits at age 62, her benefit will only be 35% of her husband's PIA.

It doesn't help the spouse to wait until after reaching full retirement age to apply for benefits, as spousal benefits will not include delayed credits. On top of that, it won't help the wife if the husband waits to apply for benefits because she will not receive any rise in benefits that he will get by waiting to receive benefits.

Where a spouse gets to full retirement age and becomes qualified to apply for the spousal benefit or her own benefit, she may claim the spousal benefit now and hold off collecting her own benefit in order to accumulate delayed credits on her own benefit.

An individual can collect Social Security spousal benefits calculated on an ex-spouse's income so long as you were married for a minimum of 10 years and you are at present unmarried. In case you have more than one ex-spouse which you meet the requirements pertaining to spousal benefits, you'll receive the maximum benefit you qualify for. One benefit that divorced spouses have over married spouses is the fact that a divorced spouse doesn't need to wait around for a former husband to start receiving benefits as long as the pair is divorced not less than 2 yrs when she applies.

Finally, the Social Security retirement system is gender neutral, so though this article has assumed that the wife is generally the one applying for spousal benefits, if the wife makes more money than the husband, the husband can apply for Social Security benefits based on his wife's earnings.

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