Claiming Social Security benefits is an exercise in timing. Benefits are pegged to what the agency calls your Full Retirement Age, or FRA, 66 for those now near retirement. Claim too early—or too late—and you could be out truly big bucks.  First, there are early retirement reductions. For example, if you file at the earliest claiming age of 62, your benefits will be reduced by up to 25 percent. Early claiming reductions are even greater for spousal benefits: up to 30 percent if a spouse files at 62 versus 66.  The agency also has rules affecting the maximum benefits that qualifying family members may receive based on a person’s earnings record. So if a worker files early, the whole family stands to lose benefits.  The effects of early claiming don’t end there. If a person files for spousal benefits before reaching their FRA, Social Security deems them to be filing at the same time for their own retirement benefits. They will receive the greater of the two amounts, but will not be able to file a restricted application for just the spousal benefit.  Further, they will not be able to suspend their own retirement benefit and take advantage of Social Security’s delayed retirement credits, which add 8% a year to someone’s benefits, adjusted for inflation, between the ages of 66 and 70.  When someone has reached their FRA, however, such deeming no longer applies. The claimant can file for just the retirement or spousal benefit, receiving its full value while letting the second benefit rise in value until they switch to it at a later date.  These are complicated rules. Even if you understand them, Social Security representatives may not, or there may be communications and misunderstandings.  That’s what happened to Steve Hirsh, from Ridgeland, Miss. After reaching his FRA, Hirsh filed for his retirement benefit. His wife, who is younger, has not reached her FRA and has not yet filed for any benefit. The couple’s plan, Steve wrote, is for his wife to claim a spousal benefit at age 66, which would equal half of Steve’s benefit at his FRA.  At the same time, she would suspend her own retirement benefit for four years. Then, when she turned 70, she would stop receiving spousal benefits and begin taking her own retirement benefits, which would have risen during four years of delayed retirement credits and reached their maximum amount.  Steve’s plan is sound, but he said that Social Security didn’t see it that way. “I have been told repeatedly by various Social Security reps that she cannot file for the spousal option because her [earnings] base is more than half of mine,” he wrote to me via email. In other words, her retirement benefit from her own work record would be larger than her spousal benefit from Steve’s work history. “Is the Social Security office correct that we can’t do this because of the relative values of our full base amounts?”  Steve got bad advice from Social Security. Repeatedly. The relative values of a couple’s Social Security earnings can come into play if either spouse files for benefits before reaching FRA and is deemed to be filing for multiple benefits. But deeming ends at FRA, and the relative values of a couple’s covered earnings does not restrict their ability to collect a benefit.  I asked Steve to take another crack at Social Security, and he did. This time, the agency got it right. He sent me the agency’s response, which said in part, “Please note that deemed filing is not applicable for a claimant who is full retirement age (FRA). If an individual is FRA, he or she can file for a spousal benefit and delay filing for his or her own retirement benefit until a later time.”  Steve was delighted. “This will make a significant difference in our overall retirement strategy,” he said.  Beyond congratulating him for being persistent, we should read this as a cautionary tale. Even the official source of Social Security information can make mistakes, and what you don’t know can hurt you. So, do your homework and understand Social Security benefits. If Steve and his wife had taken the agency’s earlier responses at face value, they would have lost a lot of retirement income.  Philip Moeller is an expert on retirement, aging, and health. He is an award-winning business journalist and a research fellow at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. Reach him at moeller.philip@gmail.com or @PhilMoeller on Twitter.
The rules surrounding claiming requirements are so complicated that the official source of information doesn't always get them right. Here's some guidance that will save you money—and keep you from settling for bad advice.