Here Are Some Answers to Common Questions on Social Security Disability and Spousal Benefits

When you reach your full retirement age, a few months before turning 67, your benefits automatically will switch from disability benefits to retirement benefits, and the monthly check will be for about the same amount, according to Wade Pfau, professor of retirement income at the American College of Financial Services. 

You may work while receiving disability benefits, but payments will stop if you’re engaged in what the Social Security Administration, or SSA, calls “substantial gainful activity.” In 2022, that level is defined as earning more than $1,350 a month, or $2,260 if you’re blind.  

If you’re receiving disability benefits, you’re entitled to a “trial work period” of up to nine months to test your ability to work. During this time, you can make more than the capped amount without losing benefits, according to the SSA.

Once you reach full retirement age and transition to retirement benefits, there’s no limit on how much you can earn while still receiving your full benefits. 

“There’s no earnings test after full retirement age,” Pfau said. “If you want to work, another option would be to voluntarily suspend your benefits once you reach full retirement age, and then you’ll get delayed-retirement credits up to age 70, which will increase your subsequent benefits.”

Q: I’m turning 72. I found out about spousal benefits almost 10 years after I started collecting my own Social Security retirement benefit, and I definitely would have received more money getting spousal benefits. Will I be able to request retro pay if I switch to spousal benefits? 

The maximum spousal benefit is 50% of the other spouse’s full benefit, according to the SSA. Your spousal benefit is a top-off on your own benefit to get you to that amount, Pfau said, so if you’re not getting the spousal benefit, it’s likely that your own retirement benefit amounts to more than half of your spouse’s monthly check.

In any event, the SSA has a rule about retroactive benefits: “We cannot pay retroactive benefits for any month before you reached full retirement age or more than six months in the past,” according to the agency’s website.  

Q: I was told I was eligible for a portion of my ex-husband’s Social Security benefit because I never remarried and his benefit was so much higher than mine. I’ve planned all along to take my benefits at 62, but when I went to apply, I was told I’m no longer eligible due to a “new bill.” When did this change, and why? 

It’s possible that you received bad information, misunderstood what you were told, or are omitting important details about your personal situation. But as long as you were married for at least 10 years, your divorce occurred at least two years ago, you haven’t remarried, and both you and your ex-husband are 62 or older, you can file to get an ex-spouse benefit, according to Pfau. 

If you begin receiving spousal benefits at full retirement age, you’ll get up to 50% of your ex-spouse’s full retirement amount. But if you begin receiving benefits before that, your monthly check will be reduced. 

“If it’s been two years since their divorce, she’s free to file and get that ex-spouse benefit,” said Pfau, founder of the educational website Retirement Researcher. “There’s nothing stopping her.”

The new bill you’re referring to is likely the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, which eliminated the “file-and-suspend” loophole that allowed married couples to maximize their benefits. Now, a spouse can no longer collect benefits on her husband’s work record while his benefits are suspended, and married people filing for Social Security at any age are automatically claiming both their retirement benefit and their spousal benefit under “deemed filing” rules, and they will receive whichever is higher. 

That second change doesn’t apply to people born before Jan. 2, 1954, according to the senior advocacy group AARP. They can still file a “restricted application” for just spousal benefits, but only if they’ve reached full retirement age.

In your example, if you’re trying to file a restricted application for just the ex-spouse benefit and not your own retirement benefit, “that’s no longer allowed,” Pfau said, and that might have been what the SSA was trying to tell you.  

“According to the bill, you can no longer file for just the ex-spouse benefit without having been deemed as having filed for your own benefits,” Pfau added.

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