Social Security Tips for Solo Agers

Put another way, if your basic benefit works out to $2,000 a month, you’d qualify for $1,400 at 62 and $2,480 at 70 — and that’s without accounting for Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), which boosts benefits in tandem with inflation.

Those reductions, or additions, are locked in for life. “If I start my benefit at 62 rather than 70, I am cutting my benefit almost in half — every month, every year, for the rest of my life,” Ritter says.

Runyen agrees. “There’s less complexity [in the decision], but there’s more of an incentive to wait,” he says, especially for those worried about outliving their savings.

But delaying might not be a viable option if you need your benefit to make ends meet — and older singles are significantly more likely than married people to live in poverty, according to Census Bureau data. Claiming early might also make sense if you don’t expect to live to 70, or much past it, due to your health or family history.

“In some cases, people are willing to leave a little bit of money on the table in order to get [Social Security] earlier,” Runyen says. “There’s very few circumstances where we see that making sense from a financial perspective.”

Widowed or divorced? You may have more options

Widows and widowers 60 or older may qualify for a survivor benefit based on their late spouse’s earnings record (the age threshold is 50 for survivors with disabilities). Payments range from 71.5 percent of your late partner’s benefit if you claim at the minimum age to 100 percent at your full retirement age. (For survivors, FRA is 66 and 67, depending on your birth year.)

Surviving spouses who also qualify for a retirement benefit based on their own earnings record may be able to maximize their lifetime Social Security income by claiming the lower payment first and waiting to claim the bigger one when it maxes out (at 70 for retirement benefits, FRA for survivor benefits). You can’t get both benefits combined; if you claim both, Social Security will pay whichever amount is higher.

Divorced solo agers also may be able to claim benefits based on the earnings record of a living or deceased ex-spouse if the marriage lasted 10 or more years, among other criteria.

If your ex is still alive, you may be eligible to collect monthly payments of 32.5 to 50 percent of what they get from Social Security, provided you are 62 or older and the marriage lasted at least 10 years.

Runyen says he is frequently asked two questions about this claiming category: “Will my ex-spouse know I took that benefit? And … will it impact my ex-spouse’s ability to take their own [Social Security]?”

The answer to both is no, he notes. But you’ll receive a divorced-spouse benefit only if the payment is higher than your own retirement benefit, based on your own earnings record.

Another thing to keep in mind: If you remarry, generally you lose eligibility for divorced-spouse benefits.

Divorced people can also receive survivor benefits based on their late ex-spouse’s earnings record (again, as long as the marriage lasted at least 10 years). The rules on claiming ages and benefit ranges are the same as for widows and widowers.

Surviving spouses and ex-spouses may not lose benefit eligibility if they remarry, provided they are 60 or older when they do so (50 or older if you have a disability).

With the multiple options for divorced and widowed solo agers, “it’s really important to look into what benefits are available before you make the decision of when you should begin drawing” Social Security, Jestice says.