A husband or wife can collect Social Security on a spouse’s work record, even with little or no work history of their own. The most it pays is half of the spouse’s benefit at full retirement age. Claim before your own full retirement age and that half gets cut, by as much as 35% at 62.
Enter both full retirement age amounts and the age you plan to claim. The calculator shows what you’d get at every age from 62 to 70, split into the part from your own record and the spousal part on top.
What a spouse gets at each age
Say your spouse’s benefit at full retirement age is $2,400 a month and you never worked enough to earn your own. You were born in 1960 or later, so your full retirement age is 67.
At 67, your spousal benefit is $1,200, exactly half. At 65 it’s $1,000. At 62 it drops to $780.
Waiting past 67 adds nothing. Spousal benefits don’t earn delayed retirement credits, so $1,200 is the ceiling no matter how long you hold off. That’s the single biggest difference from a regular retirement benefit, which keeps growing until 70.
How the reduction works
The cut for claiming early is steeper than the one on a regular retirement benefit. For each of the first 36 months before full retirement age, the spousal benefit drops by 25/36 of 1%. Beyond 36 months, each extra month takes off 5/12 of 1%.
With a full retirement age of 67, claiming at 62 is 60 months early. The first 36 months cost 25%, the next 24 cost 10%, and you keep 65% of the full spousal amount. On a $2,400 record, that’s 65% of $1,200, or $780.
For people born from 1955 through 1959, full retirement age falls between 66 and 2 months and 66 and 10 months. The calculator uses the right one for your birth year.
If you have your own benefit too
Social Security always pays your own retirement benefit first. If half of your spouse’s amount is larger, it adds the difference as a spousal top up.
Take the same $2,400 spouse, and say your own benefit at full retirement age is $600. Half of $2,400 is $1,200, so the spousal part is $600. Claim at 67 and you get $600 of your own plus $600 spousal, $1,200 total.
Claim at 62 and both parts shrink, each by its own formula. Your $600 drops to $420, and the $600 top up drops to $390. The total is $810.
If your own benefit is already half of your spouse’s or more, there’s no top up at all. Someone with $1,500 of their own, married to a $2,400 earner, just gets their own benefit.
You can’t take one and save the other for later. For anyone born on or after January 2, 1954, applying for either benefit counts as applying for both. SSA calls this deemed filing.
Rules that decide if you can claim
Your spouse has to file first. You can’t get a spousal benefit until the worker has applied for their own retirement or disability benefit. They don’t have to keep receiving it, but they have to be entitled to it.
You have to be at least 62, unless you’re caring for the worker’s child who is under 16 or disabled. In that case you can get a spousal benefit at any age, with no reduction for age.
You generally have to be married for at least one year.
Divorced spouses can qualify too, if the marriage lasted 10 years or longer and you haven’t remarried. You can claim even if your ex hasn’t filed yet, as long as they’re at least 62 and you’ve been divorced for at least two years. Your claim doesn’t lower your ex’s check or their new spouse’s benefit.
When the worker claims doesn’t matter
The spousal benefit is figured from the worker’s full retirement age amount, not from the check the worker receives. If your spouse claims at 62 and takes a reduced check, your spousal benefit is still based on the unreduced figure. If they wait until 70 and get delayed credits, your spousal amount doesn’t go up either.
Their timing does matter for survivor benefits. If your spouse dies first, you can switch to a survivor benefit of up to 100% of what they were getting. That’s the main reason a higher earner might wait until 70 even though it does nothing for the spousal check. Our claiming age calculator shows how much a delay adds.
Questions people ask
Does the spousal benefit reduce my spouse’s check?
No. Your spouse gets their full amount no matter what you collect. There is a family maximum when children also draw on the same record, which can trim each family member’s share, but a worker and spouse alone stay under it.
Can I work while getting a spousal benefit?
Yes, but before your full retirement age the earnings limit applies. In 2027, SSA holds back $1 for every $2 you earn above $25,560. Our earnings limit calculator runs the numbers.
Do spousal benefits get the yearly COLA?
Yes. The same percentage applies to every Social Security benefit. For 2027 it’s 3.6%. See the Social Security increase calculator.
What if my spouse is on SSDI?
Spouses of SSDI recipients can get spousal benefits under the same age rules. The amount is based on the worker’s disability benefit, which equals their full retirement age amount. Our post on SSDI payments in 2027 has more.
Where do I find the numbers to enter?
Each of you can sign in to my Social Security at ssa.gov and look for the estimate at full retirement age. Use that figure for both boxes, not the amount at 62 or 70. SSA’s page on benefits for spouses covers the rules in more detail.
An estimate using SSA’s spousal reduction and retirement benefit rules. It assumes your spouse has filed and does not account for the family maximum. SSA decides your actual benefit.