What Happens if You Claim Spousal Social Security Benefits at 62?

We think of Social Security as a program for retired or disabled workers, but it also pays benefits to spouses of those workers, some of whom have never paid a dime in Social Security taxes themselves. Spousal benefits are pretty similar to retirement benefits for workers, but there are a few important differences.

For starters, you cannot apply for spousal Social Security benefits until your partner is already claiming. There are also a few unique rules that apply to spouses who claim early. If you're thinking of applying for spousal benefits at 62, here's what you ought to know.

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How the government calculates spousal Social Security benefits

Before we can dive into the consequences of claiming spousal Social Security benefits early, we have to talk about what it means to claim them "on time." The government assigns everyone a full retirement age (FRA) based on the year they were born. You can find yours in the table below:

Source: Social Security Administration.

If you claim your spousal benefit at your FRA, you'll get 50% of your partner's primary insurance amount (PIA). That's the benefit they're entitled to at their FRA. For example, if their PIA was $2,000, your spousal benefit would be $1,000.

But the majority of seniors don't claim Social Security precisely at their FRA. So the government runs additional calculations to determine how to adjust their benefits appropriately.

The consequences of early claiming

Claiming before your FRA reduces your Social Security benefit, whether you're claiming on your own work history or someone else's. And if you apply at 62, you'll get a lot less per month. That's especially true for spousal benefits, because the penalty for early claiming is steeper than it is for workers.

Workers only lose 5/9 of 1% per month for up to 36 months of early claiming. But spouses lose 25/36 of 1% per month over that same period. Both groups lose an additional 5/12 of 1% per month for every additional month of early claiming beyond 36 months.

To give you an idea of the difference that can make, let's take the example of a worker with a PIA of $2,000 and their spouse with a maximum spousal benefit of $1,000. Here's what their checks would look like at various claiming ages, assuming both have FRAs of 67:

Source: Author's calculations.

A steep penalty like that might scare some people from claiming early, but it's not always the wrong move. If you and your partner really need the extra cash or you don't expect to live much longer, it makes sense to claim at 62 to get as much as you can. But this might not be the best decision for someone who expects to live a long life and can afford to delay benefits if they want to.

One important note for those who hope to delay spousal Social Security benefits: You might be familiar with the idea of delayed retirement credits for workers. These give their checks a boost of 2/3 of 1% per month for every month they delay benefits beyond their FRA until they reach 70. But this doesn't apply to spousal benefits.

The largest spousal benefit you can get is 50% of your partner's PIA. As discussed above, you become eligible for this at your FRA, so there's no incentive to delay spousal benefits longer than this. Unless you're unable to sign up because your spouse is not yet claiming, you should apply for Social Security by your FRA at the latest.

If you're not sure of the best time for you to apply, talk things over with your partner to make sure you're both on the same page. Once you have that plan in place, you'll be able to estimate how much you'll get from Social Security and how much of your retirement expenses you'll have to fund on your own.