by AMAC Certified Social Security Advisor Russell Gloor
Association of Mature American Citizens
Ask Rusty - We took benefits early, can we get more now?
Dear Rusty: My birth date is 1947. My wife is 1950. We both took our Social Security years ago at age 62 due to health concerns because we questioned if we would live to age 78 to equalize the extra payout if we would have waited to age 66. Taking early at 62 may have been a mistake and I am wondering if there are any options available to maximize my and/or my wife’s monthly payment with a restricted application or any other available options? My gross monthly is $946.60, and my wife’s is $543.60 before the deduction for Medicare. Together our gross monthly is about equal to the per person individual average monthly payment of $1479. Signed: Regretful we took SS early.
Dear Regretful: I’m afraid the options for either you or your wife increasing your benefit at this point are extremely limited. You cannot file the restricted application you mentioned because that can only be done by someone applying for the first time (and who was born before 1/2/1954), and only by someone who has not yet reached age 70. Neither can you suspend your benefits to earn delayed retirement credits (DRCs) because DRCs are only earned up to age 70. Your wife has a very small window until she reaches 70 in March during which she could suspend her benefits, and by doing so immediately she could perhaps earn, at most, an additional 1% in DRCs (about $5 more per month). That leaves only two other things which could increase your benefits: 1) Annual Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) granted each year depending upon inflation, and 2) returning to work and having substantial current earnings which may replace the earnings in a lower-earning year in your lifetime work record (SS uses the highest earning 35 years over your lifetime to compute your benefit amount). If you have some years in that 35-year history with no or very low earnings, working now could replace one or more of those years. I have no way of determining whether that is a possibility; you would need to get your lifetime earnings record from Social Security and see if that is possible by examining your earnings for each year over your lifetime. But remember, all early years of earnings ...
