Social Security Spousal Benefits
Up to half your partner's benefit, with rules that catch people out.
Verdict: a spousal benefit is worth up to 50% of your partner's full retirement age benefit. You only get the full 50% by claiming at your own full retirement age, and unlike your own benefit, waiting past that gains you nothing.
If your own earnings record produces a smaller benefit than half your spouse's, Social Security tops you up to the spousal amount. You do not receive both. You receive the larger of the two.
Who qualifies
You generally need to be married at least a year, be at least 62, and your spouse must have already claimed their own benefit. Divorced people often qualify too: if the marriage lasted at least ten years and you have not remarried, you can claim on an ex-spouse's record, and after two years divorced you can do so whether or not they have claimed. Your claim does not reduce theirs and they are not notified.
The rule that surprises people
Delayed retirement credits do not apply to spousal benefits. Your own benefit grows 8% a year if you wait past full retirement age. A spousal benefit does not grow at all past that point.
So if you are claiming purely as a spouse, waiting beyond your full retirement age is simply lost money. The maximum is 50%, and you reach it at full retirement age, full stop.
Claiming early costs more than you expect
Claiming a spousal benefit before your full retirement age reduces it, and the reduction is steeper than the one applied to your own benefit. At 62 with a full retirement age of 67, a spousal benefit is worth around 32.5% of your partner's amount rather than 50%.
That is a permanent cut, and it is the most common way couples quietly lose money.
You cannot pick and choose any more
People still read old advice about claiming a spousal benefit first and switching to your own later. That strategy, called a restricted application, was closed for anyone born in 1954 or later.
Under the current rules, filing triggers deemed filing: you are treated as applying for everything you are eligible for, and you get the larger amount. If you were born in 1954 or later, that option does not exist for you, whatever an older article says.
How couples usually get this right
The higher earner delays, often to 70, because that benefit becomes the survivor benefit and is likely to be collected the longest. The lower earner claims earlier for cash flow, then steps up to the spousal amount when the higher earner files.
Work through the numbers with the claiming age calculator, and read survivor benefits, because that is what the strategy is really protecting.
Frequently asked questions
Up to 50% of your partner's benefit at their full retirement age. You receive the larger of your own benefit or the spousal amount, not both added together.
Yes, if the marriage lasted at least ten years and you have not remarried. After two years divorced you can claim even if your ex has not claimed yet. It does not reduce their benefit and they are not told.
No. Delayed retirement credits apply only to your own benefit. A spousal benefit maxes out at your full retirement age, so waiting beyond it gains nothing.
Not if you were born in 1954 or later. That restricted application strategy was closed. Filing now deems you to have applied for everything you qualify for, and you receive the larger amount.