Married Couples: Don't Miss This Big Opportunity to Maximize Your Social Security Benefits

Maximizing your Social Security benefit is all about timing your claim correctly. This is true for single and married adults, but there's more strategy involved for married couples. They have to think about how their decision will affect their partner as well as their own benefit.

The best path forward varies by couple, but there are a few tried-and-true approaches that have helped married seniors optimize their Social Security claims for decades. We'll look at three common scenarios to help you make the right call.

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A quick look at how your claiming age affects your benefits

Before we dive into strategies, let's review how your claiming age impacts your benefits. The government assigns everyone a full retirement age (FRA) based on their birth year. It's 67 for those born in 1960 or later, though older adults hit their FRA sooner.

Claiming under your FRA reduces your benefit while waiting to apply earns you delayed retirement credits that boost your checks until you turn 70. The following table shows how Social Security retirement benefits grow over time for adults with FRAs of 66 and 67. 

Data source: Social Security Administration.

Things are a little different for spousal benefits. These are benefits you're eligible for if you marry a qualifying worker. These checks are worth up to half of the worker's retirement benefit at their FRA. The following table outlines how delaying your spousal benefit application grows your checks over time for those with FRAs of 66 and 67.

Data source: Social Security Administration.

Note that there are no delayed retirement credits for spousal benefits, so there's no reason to delay these claims past your FRA. Also, keep in mind that you cannot apply for spousal benefits unless the worker is already claiming their retirement benefit.

Three strategies married couples can use to get the most from Social Security

Here's a look at three common scenarios and the optimal way to approach Social Security benefits for each:

When there's financial insecurity or one or both has a short life expectancy

Claiming early is often the better way to go if you don't feel you can afford to delay your Social Security application. It might mean settling for a smaller lifetime benefit, but it can help maintain your financial security now. If you'd like, you could have just one person sign up for benefits right away. That might be enough to get you by so the other can delay Social Security until they qualify for larger checks.

When someone has a short life expectancy, that's generally a good reason to claim Social Security early, too. It'll help you claim as many checks as possible before you pass away. But this reduces the survivors benefit your partner is eligible for after your death. If you don't need a retirement benefit today, you might prefer to not claim at all so your spouse can get larger checks later.

When both spouses have earned similar amounts throughout their careers

The Social Security Administration gives you the larger of your own retirement benefit or your spousal benefit. In this scenario, each person will probably wind up with their own retirement benefit.

The table below outlines how much a married couple that's the same age would wind up with in various claiming scenarios if both partners qualified for a $2,000 monthly benefit at their FRAs of 67.

Source: Author's calculations.

This scenario is a bit of an oversimplification because it's unlikely that both people would qualify for the exact same retirement benefit. But it shows that when both spouses have a similar income history, couples often do best if each delays their Social Security claim as long as possible.

When one spouse significantly out-earned the other throughout their career

When one spouse significantly out-earned the other, it's more important for the higher earner to delay because their delayed retirement credits are worth more than the lower earner's. Consider the following example of a married couple that's the same age where one worker qualifies for a $3,000 monthly benefit at their FRA of 67 while the other only qualifies for a $1,000 monthly benefit at their FRA. Here's a look at how much they could wind up with at different claiming ages.

Source: Author's calculations.

In this scenario, the lower earner claiming early helps the couple earn the most overall. But this might not always be true. The lower earner's spousal benefit in our example is higher than their retirement benefit, so they'd change over to a spousal benefit when their partner qualified.

Had the lower earner's retirement benefit been higher than their spousal benefit, they would have continued to receive their retirement benefit after their partner signed up. Then, it might be in the couple's interest for the lower earner to delay Social Security as well. However, if this wasn't feasible for the couple, then ideally, the lower earner would sign up early to support the couple until the higher earner was ready to apply.

It's your turn

If you haven't already sat down to discuss a Social Security claiming strategy with your partner, now is a good time to do so. You can always adapt it as you get closer to retirement, but knowing when each of you plans to claim will help you figure out how much you can expect from the program and how much of your retirement expenses you'll have to cover on your own.

To get started, each person should create a my Social Security account. Once you've logged into your account, you'll find a tool that can estimate your benefit at every claiming age between 62 and 70. Use these estimates and the guidelines above to determine which claiming ages make the most sense for you.