Social Security Spousal Benefits - MADE EASY to Understand

in this video i'm going to crack the code on social security's spousal benefits coming up next on holy schmidt holy schmidt hi everybody it's jeff schmidt with holysmith.com and welcome to another episode hey are you confused about social security spousal benefits if so you're not alone this episode is going to break down social security spousal benefits three different ways how benefits are calculated if the spouse never worked how benefits are calculated if the spouse has a work history and finally how benefits are calculated in the event of a divorce it's important to note so that nobody's confused that this entire episode is being discussed from the perspective of the spouse receiving the benefits it also assumes that both partners are alive so we're not going to discuss survivor benefits today finally for the purposes of this video we assume that full retirement age is 67. now let's get right into it let's start off with the fundamentals the length of marriage rules the social security administration has rules around length of marriage so that people can't game the system get married on monday file for benefits on tuesday and then get divorced on wednesday etc this section is brief but it's going to cover off what those rules are first the rules around spousal benefits the marriage requirements are simple it's one year and the primary filer has to have filed for his or her own benefits it's clean it's simple and it's easy to understand the other type is the benefits for a divorced spouse whose ex is still alive and the rules are pretty clear you have to have been married for 10 years not remarried and your ex-spouse has to have filed for his or her own benefits by the way stick around to the end because i'm going to discuss exceptions to the length of marriage rules for both spouses and ex-spouses let's start off with the spousal benefit for a spouse that has never worked or doesn't have enough work history to claim his or her own benefits everything is based on two things how old the spouse is when he or she files for benefits and if the primary earner has filed for their own benefits or not and just to note the spouse cannot claim benefits if the primary earner has not filed for his or her own social security benefits if the primary earner has filed for social security then the spousal benefit is based on the age of the spouse when filing the closer they are to full retirement age the higher the percentage but not to exceed 50 percent if the primary filer's benefit at full retirement age is twenty five hundred dollars then the spousal benefit if the spouse is sixty seven is half of twenty five hundred dollars in other words it's twelve hundred and fifty dollars per month at age 62 they receive 32 and a half percent or 812 dollars and 50 cents and if the spouse is somewhere between let's say age 65 they'll dollars and receive cents it's also worth noting that there's absolutely no upside to weight past full retirement age for the spousal benefit because unlike the primary filer's benefit which can keep going up to age 70 the spousal benefit caps out at fifty percent and that's at age 67 for the purposes of this video by the way before we go any further make sure you hit the like button down below because youtube uses the like button for its algorithm and it raises this video's place in the search results i want to make sure that as many people as possible get the opportunity to view this information now that i got that out of the way back to the video the next is a little bit more complicated and that is if the spouse has their own work history and they can actually claim benefits on their own in this instance they can either claim their own benefits or the spousal benefit but they can't claim both so if your benefit is over 50 percent of the spousal benefit it makes no sense to file for spousal benefits because you won't get anything now here's where it gets a little bit murky if your benefit is less than 50 of the spousal benefit can you file early and pick up the spousal benefit later well like anything the answer is it depends by the way for those of you that have instagram i just started an instagram channel it's the underscore schmidt list on instagram so make sure you check it out it has different information about social security than what we have here on youtube let's look at example number one if you're 67 years old and your benefit is a thousand dollars a month the primary filer's benefit is 2500 a month then at 67 you would be entitled to half of the primary filer's benefit meaning 1250 a month so in that instance you get 12.50 not a thousand but what is that 1250 comprised of if you look at this chart it's comprised of your thousand dollar benefit plus a two hundred and fifty dollar top up to get you to the 12.50 but let's say you were 63 years old and you filed again assuming that your spouse has already filed you would receive 75 percent of your thousands so that's 750 dollars plus a top-up of 70 of 250 so that's 175 so your total payment would be 925 this is because there are different speeds for the spousal benefit and the primary filer's benefit to get to full retirement age benefit of 100 or 50 in the case of a spousal benefit but what if you're 63 and you have a primary benefit coming but your spouse hasn't filed yet so you file at age 63 and you get 75 percent of a thousand so that's seven hundred and fifty dollars but there is no top up because your spouse hasn't filed now let's say that your spouse waited until you were 67 before he or she filed your top up would be the full 250 so you'd receive your original 750 from when you were 63 and the top-up would happen at 67 so you'd have a total of one thousand dollars per month as promised we're going to cover the exceptions to the length of marriage rule for both spouses and exes first the exception to the one year period on the spousal rule if you marry someone who's the natural father or mother of your child then the one year waiting period is waived also if you're entitled to a spousal or survivor benefit on someone else's record before you got married then the one year period is waived next is the divorce rule exception you don't need to wait for your ex-spouse to file for benefits if you have been divorced for at least two years and your ex-spouse is at least 62. at this point the spouse and the ex are making different decisions about their lives and so therefore it would make sense that you decouple the primary filer's decision from the spouse's decision to file for social security benefits if you like this video make sure you click subscribe and notifications so that you get notified when i post my next video i try to post twice a week also check out this video right here on seven good reasons to file for social security at age 62. this is jeff schmidt thanks for watching

Channel: Holy Schmidt!

Views: 347,551

Keywords: social security spousal benefits, social security spousal benefits 2020, social security spousal benefits after death, social security spousal benefits strategy, social security spousal benefits divorce, social security spousal benefits vs own benefits, how to apply for social security spousal benefits, social security benefits for divorced spouse, can i collect my ex-spouses of deceased spouses social security, social security length of marriage rules

Id: NKgShrGY1G4

Length: 7min 22sec (442 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 17 2020