Spousal social security
Spouse collecting half of husband’s social security after collecting her own for over 15 years . Both are still alive and still married to each other.
Can she still apply for the higher amount? After all these years?
Terry Says
You can have one — but not both — of those benefits. If both are alive and you are still married, you can call Social Security and ask them to calculate whether half of your spouse’s benefit is greater than your own. (In fact, you can do that on your own if your spouse will share the amount of his benefit, not counting any Medicare deduction.)
If, in fact, half of his benefit is larger than your own (again before Medicare deductions) then yes, call SS and ask them to switch you to the larger benefit.
This only gets tricky when it involves EX spouses — because they likely don’t share information about their benefits with each other. But it you’re still married to each other, this should be a simple calculation when you know each other’s monthly benefit.
