Clarifying Quinn: women and Social Security benefits

An article by Jane Bryant Quinn in the current AARP Bulletin is causing a bit of a buzz. Quinn wrote:

There's an exception for married people in good health when one of them has a small Social Security benefit. Typically, that's the wife. If she retires first, she should start her individual benefit at 62. When her husband retires, she'll switch to the spousal benefit. By using her own account first, she taps a benefit that otherwise would have gone to waste.

But Mary Jane Yarrington, senior policy analyst for the National Committee to Protect Social Security and Medicare, says that Quinn’s information is misleading.

. . .a wife cannot "switch." When a wage earner applies first for his or her own benefit, it stays in effect. A wife who takes her own benefit early does never receives the full 50 percent spouse benefit when the husband begins his benefit. The difference between her full-retirement-age benefit and 50 percent of his gets added on to her monthly benefit amount. This factors in the fact that she has been receiving months of early benefit. JBQ does not make that clear.

By taking the benefit early, does the wife "tap into a benefit that otherwise might go to waste?" Probably. Depends on how long the husband lives. When he dies, if she is full retirement age or more when widow benefits begin, she receives 100 percent of the benefit he would receive if still alive. Her own early retirement is ignored in determining her widow entitlement.

If you have questions about Social Security, you can “Ask Mary Jane.”

Thanks to Glenna Schumann, Coalition of Wisconsin Aging Groups, for passing this along.