Smart Strategies for Couples: Boost Your Social Security Benefits! | Living Spousal Strategies

while Social Security benefits are individual benefits how much you can get can be heavily influenced by your spouse this video will focus on situations where both spouses are still alive there are some other examples around what happens if your spouse passes away and I cover that again in a different video okay I have a few examples for you and at the end of the examples are of course important exceptions and requirements for those to happen so make sure that you watch until the end before jumping out of here with your new spousal strategy for the first example our couple is going to be John and Jane John and Jane are married John has a Pia of two thousand dollars Jane has a Pia of 800 remember that Pia is the full amount that they are entitled to at their full retirement age both John and Jane have reached their full retirement age of 67 in this example and they are ready to start taking social security benefits well John will get his two thousand dollars a month it is pretty simple Jane has options she can either take the eight hundred dollars that is her personal benefit or she is entitled to half of John's benefit the math here is pretty simple and Jane should take the one thousand dollars per month spousal benefit rather than her own 800 per month benefit okay let's look at a second example John still has a Pia of two thousand dollars per month but Jane now has a Pia of twelve hundred dollars per month now if you were born in 1954 or later this one is simple as well Jane's personal benefit is more than half of John's benefit so James should take her own benefit however if somebody is born prior to 1954 there is a unique opportunity called the restricted spousal strategy if Jane were born prior to 1954 what Jane could do is actually take her spousal benefit of one thousand dollars from age 66 to 70 and then at 70 she can switch to her personal benefit here's why she might want to do that you may have seen our other video talking about the eight percent growth per year that someone delays their social security past their full retirement age well for those born prior to 1954 you can take your spouse also benefit and then your personal benefit can continue to grow in the background allowing you to take the higher personal benefit later at say 70 years old now this strategy isn't for everybody but it is one for those born prior to 1954 to consider okay those are the two and a half examples of how existing spouses can work together however there are four things that must happen for everything to work out as described for a spouse to receive the full spousal benefit in our example it was Jane in that one thousand dollar benefit number one the primary worker in this case it's John must have filed for his benefits already in order for Jane to receive the spousal benefit number two the spouse in this case Jane must be at least 62 years old to receive reduced benefits or her full retirement age for the full one thousand dollar benefit remember if Jane files for the spousal benefits early she will only get a percentage of that one thousand dollars not the full amount if she files at her full retirement age she gets the full one thousand dollars number 3. John and Jane must have been married for at least one year lastly number four the spousal benefit is based on the other spouse's Pia meaning there are no delayed credits on the spousal benefit after the full retirement age Jane's spousal benefit based on John does not increase if John delays his social security benefits to have them grow likewise if John is younger and takes his benefits at say 62 making him receive less than the two thousand dollars per month and Jane is her full retirement age she still gets half of John's full two thousand dollar Pia amount all right if you are divorced or your spouse has passed away subscribe to this Channel and look for the social security video that covers those situations if this video was helpful for you please consider giving it a like and we will see you in the next video

Channel: The Retirement Nerds

Views: 17,872

Keywords: medicare, social security, social security explained, social security spousal benefits, social security spousal strategies, social security spousal benefits strategy, restricted spousal benefits

Id: DH-DQ1VRtWA

Length: 3min 53sec (233 seconds)

Published: Tue May 23 2023