Can a spouse collect on her husband's social security if she reaches retirement age before her husband? No. In order for a wife to collect Social Security benefits on her husband's income several conditions must be met:
1. The spouse applying for the spousal benefit needs to be at least age 62
2. The husband will need to be eligible for benefits, so he must also be at least age 62. In addition, the husband needs to actually apply for Social Security retirement benefits in order for his wife to receive benefits based on his income. The husband may then choose to delay collecting benefits. This strategy is known as "file and suspend".
To give you an example, if the wife is 62 and the husband is 61, the wife can begin receiving benefits based on her own earnings, but she can not receive benefits based on her husband's earnings until he turns 62 and starts receiving his own benefits.
Having said that, if the wife is 66 and the husband is 62, then the wife can begin collecting based on her husband's income (remember, the husband will need to apply for benefits before the wife will be able to collect based on his earnings).
In the cases shown above, the wife can start receiving benefits based on her own earnings as soon as she turns 62 (assuming she has at least forty quarters of earnings and also qualifies for benefits on her own), then switch to half of her husband's benefit when her husband becomes eligible for Social Security.
Some areas to give some thought to before applying for benefits:
If a wife applies for her Social Security spousal benefit based on her husband's earnings when she reaches full retirement age (age 66 for people retiring now), then she'll receive 50% of her husband's primary insurance amount (PIA). On the other hand, if she starts receiving benefits at age 62, then her benefit will only be 35% of her husband's PIA.
It does not benefit the spouse to apply after her full retirement age, as spousal benefits will not include delayed credits. In addition, it doesn't benefit the wife if the husband waits to apply for benefits because she won't receive any increase in benefits that he receives by waiting to apply.
Where a spouse reaches full retirement age and is qualified to receive the spousal benefit or her own benefit, she may start receiving the spousal benefit now and delay taking her own benefit so she can build up delayed credits on her own benefit.
An individual can collect Social Security spousal benefits based on an ex-spouse's earnings if you were married for a minimum of ten years and you are currently unmarried. If you have more than one ex-spouse that you meet the requirements for spousal benefits, you will get the maximum benefit you are entitled to. One advantage that divorced spouses have over married spouses is that a divorced spouse does not have to wait for a former husband to start collecting benefits as long as the couple has been divorced for not less than 2 yrs when she applies.
As a final point, the Social Security retirement system is gender neutral, so while this article assumes that the wife is the one applying for spousal benefits, if the wife makes more than her husband, the husband can sign up for Social Security benefits based on his wife's earnings.
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