When people talk about Social Security benefits, they're usually talking about the checks available to retired workers. But that's not the only kind of benefit you could get. Spousal benefits are available to the partners of qualifying workers and sometimes are worth more than the retirement benefit you'd qualify for on your own.
It pays to understand how spousal benefits work so you can anticipate what kind of check you might be entitled to and how much of your retirement expenses you'll need to cover on your own.
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Who qualifies for spousal Social Security benefits?
Many believe that if you're married to a worker who's eligible for Social Security retirement benefits, you're eligible for a spousal benefit on their work record. But the truth is more complicated.
There's a one-year length-of-marriage rule, meaning you don't actually become eligible for spousal benefits until you and your spouse celebrate your first anniversary. However, you don't have to meet this requirement if you're the parent of your new spouse's child or were eligible for Social Security or Railroad Retirement Act benefits in the month before the month you got married. In that case, you'll become eligible for retirement benefits as soon as your marriage becomes official.
Some divorced spouses could also be eligible for spousal benefits on their ex's work record if the couple was married for at least 10 years before divorcing. You could lose this eligibility if you remarry, although if your ex remarries, it won't render you unable to claim benefits on their work record.
Whether married or divorced, you must also be at least 62 in order to claim a spousal benefit. You must be 62 or older for the entire month to be eligible. To the Social Security Administration, the month you turn 62 is your first month of eligibility only if you were born on the first or second. Otherwise, you become eligible in the month after you turn 62.
Finally, you have to wait until your spouse has applied for benefits before you can claim a spousal benefit on their work record. If you're divorced, you don't generally have to wait until your ex claims retirement benefits, but you have to be divorced for at least two years before you can claim ex-spousal benefits on your ex's work record if your ex hasn't yet claimed.
How much will your spousal Social Security benefit be?
Your spousal benefit is worth up to one-half of the benefit that your spouse (or ex) qualifies for at their full retirement age (FRA), which depends on your birth year. If you were born in 1960 or later, your FRA is 67. If you were born before 1960, your FRA will be slightly earlier.
To get your maximum spousal benefit, you must wait until your own FRA to apply. You can claim as early as 62, but you'll face a 35% early claiming penalty for doing so. That could drop a $1,000 spousal benefit to $650 per month.
Unlike retirement benefits, which continue to grow a little each month you delay until you turn 70, there's no incentive to delaying spousal benefits past your FRA. You won't receive any delayed retirement credits for doing so.
It's also possible that you may not get a spousal benefit even if you're technically eligible for one. The Social Security Administration pays you the larger of your own retirement benefit or your spousal benefit. If your own retirement benefit is bigger, you'll get that instead.
Spousal benefits are eligible for the same annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) as retirement benefits, so you can expect your checks to get a small bump each year to help them keep up with inflation.
You can estimate your spousal benefit at all possible claiming ages with a free my Social Security account. You'll need to know your partner's benefit at their FRA, which they can get from their own my Social Security account.
Once you have an idea of what kind of spousal benefit to expect, you can see how it compares to the retirement benefit you'd be eligible for at the same age using the benefit estimator tool in your my Social Security account. That should give you an idea of what type of benefit you can expect when you sign up and how far it might go.
