How to Start Social Security Benefits for a Wife if the Husband Is Still Working
- 1). Assemble documents you will need. Include Social Security numbers, marriage documents, birth certificates, citizenship papers and your bank account information for direct deposit.
- 2). Visit the Social Security office together to file for retirement benefits, or the working spouse must file first online. You may also have success with the 800-772-1213 telephone number, since you can speak with a Social Security employee.
- 3). Ask about "file and suspend" and explain that this is what you want to do as the working spouse. You are filing for benefits but suspending payments to allow your spouse to collect retirement benefits based on your work history. The working spouse must be full retirement age and the nonworking spouse must be at least age 62 for this option. Full retirement age for persons born from 1943 to 1954 is 66.
- 4). Once the working spouse files and qualifies for benefits, you can get spousal retirement benefits based on that work history. Retirement benefits for the working spouse continue to accrue. File for Social Security retirement benefits as a nonworking spouse based on the work history of the working spouse.
- 5). Wait three months for retirement benefits to begin for the nonworking spouse. Social Security determines your payment date based on the birthday of the spouse with work history. A birth date from the first to 10th of the month receives payment on the second Wednesday, and the third Wednesday payments are for birthdates from the 11th to the 20th. Social Security payments for birthdays later than the 20th issue on the fourth Wednesday.
