Retirees who have spent their careers contributing to Social Security are now looking for options to maximize the benefits received from the federal program.

While a husband and wife cannot each claim a spousal benefit based on the other’s earnings record, there are ways for married couples to coordinate and maximize their Social Security benefits:

• By waiting until the normal retirement age – currently 66 – one could file and suspend and delay collecting his or her benefits until age 70 when they are worth the maximum amount. (Social Security benefits increase by 8% per year for every year you delay collecting between ages 66 and 70). By filing and suspending, you are telling the Social Security Administration that you want to file for the purpose of triggering benefits for your spouse, but delay collecting your own until they will be worth more later.
• The earliest you can collect a spousal benefit is age 62, which will amount to 35% of the worker’s full amount. Say a wife also waits until her normal retirement age, she could file a restricted claim for spousal benefits only and collect 50% of her husband’s full retirement benefit that he did not collect. And because she restricted her claim to spousal benefits only, her own retirement benefit would accrue delayed retirement credits of 8% per year until she claimed the maximum amount at age 70.
• Assuming a husband and wife are both the same age, their combined Social Security benefit at age 70 would be 132% greater per month than if they had each collected benefits at their normal retirement age. If a husband is entitled to $2,000 per month at age 66, he and his wife would have a combined Social Security benefit of $5,016 per month by following these tips.