Sorry for being unclear. I was thinking about if you would have a lower FRA benefit than half of your spouse’s, which then would leave your post FRA and spousal claiming benefit spousal component to be maximized. Your post spousal claiming components are your own FRA benefit reduced by taking it as early as 62, and the spousal component which is the difference between your full FRA benefit and one-half the FRA benefit of your spouse, reduced if you take it before FRA. It is this second component I was referring to. It is zero if your benefit is greater than 50% of the greater earning spouse’s FRA benefit, but bigger if not.That's incorrect. Opensocialsecurity operates under the following principle: "This means that with this strategy you could expect to receive, on average, $***,*** of total Social Security benefits over the course of your lifetimes, after adjusting for the fact that a dollar received in the future is worth less than a dollar received today (because the sooner you receive a dollar the sooner you can invest it)."If your benefit is less, then claiming at 62 for your own and starting spousal after your spouse initiates at 70 will maximize your spousal.
It is NOT saying that the maximum spousal benefit will be achieved by the lower-earning spouse taking benefits at 62 (the opposite is true). It's saying that if you invested those early benefits you might do better in the market than by waiting and taking a higher income later. For that reason, they're pretty much always going to tell you to take some of the money earlier.
I prefer the relative safety of an eventual higher inflation-protected (also partly tax protected) income and higher survivor benefit. It's not necessarily wrong to take SocSec early and invest for oneself, but that's not what I think of it as for.
Statistics: Posted by Carl53 — Thu Oct 31, 2024 2:05 am — Replies 14 — Views 1156