Social Security and Marriage
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There are no negative impacts on Social Security benefits for married couples filing for retirement. Retirees in marriage are eligible to receive the highest benefits available to them through either individual earning reports or through spousal benefits. In fact, there was a loophole recently closed down that took advantage of this system. Called file-and-suspend, an individual could file for Social Security benefits and allow their spouse to file for spousal benefits, then the individual would suspend their payments and allow them to grow before restarting their collection at an older age. Throughout this time the spouse would still get spousal benefits paid to them based on the earnings of their partner. Though this strategy is no longer available, there are no negative impacts, penalties, or limits on an individual’s Social Security based off of their spouse’s earnings. For more information on this topic, visit this article by Howard Kossover with DL-Online.com.