By Kelly Greene, Wall Street Journal

My wife and I will soon be eligible for our full Social Security benefits, but each operates our won consulting practice, and we don’t need the income now.  Are there implications in the size of payments if only one of us takes Social Security and the other delays until age 70?  Does it make any difference which one of us takes it?  I have higher earnings and more years of eligible service.

Mark Hoover,  New York

How does the spousal benefit for Social Security work?  It is my understanding that the spousal benefit is 50% of my benefit.  This would seem straight forward if my wife and I were the same age and applied for benefits at the same time.

But I’m 62 and my wife is 58.  Say I started taking benefits at my full retirement age – 66.  If my wife, who would then be 62, took her spousal benefit at that point, would she get half of my benefit, or less than that?  If she waited until age 66, would she get half of my benefit at that point, or half of my benefit dating back to when I was 66?

                                                                                                                                         Drew Smith,  Kalispell, MT

    Figuring out the best way to take Social Security is tricky for married couples.

  In the first situation, where both the husband and wife are working, having one spouse wait until age 70 would increase that individual’s Social Security benefit.  If you were born in or after 1943, for example, postponing your benefits past your full retirement age would increase them by 8% a year.  Wait to start your checks until 70, and you’ve given yourself a 32% raise, says Dorothy Clark, spokeswoman for the Social Security Administration in Baltimore.  So, for example, if you were entitled to $1000 a month in benefits at age 66, you would get 1320 a month by waiting until age 70.  (A chart at www.ssa.bov/retire2/delayret.htm shows how this works.) 

You should be able to see what you would get at age 70 on the statement that Social Security mails you each year, adds Mary Jane Yarrington, a senior policy analyst for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a Washington advocacy group, who answers questions online at www.ncpssm.org/maryjane.

It does make a difference which spouse takes the benefit at full retirement and which one postpones until age 70 – but not until one of you dies.  At that point, you’re better off if the higher-earning spouse waited until age 70, because the surviving spouse is entitled to the larger of the two spouses’ benefits.

The situation in the second question is a common one: A married person (usually the wife) collects Social Security based on her husband’s earnings record when her own Social Security benefit wouldn’t equal or exceed 50% of her husband’s.

For example, if the wife’s full retirement age is 66, but she opts to start receiving Social Security checks at age 62, she would get 35% of her husband’s full benefit amount; by waiting until her full retirement age, she would get 50%, Ms. Clark says.  So for instance, if the husband were collecting $1,000 a month, the wife would get $350 a month at age 62 – or $500 a month if she started her benefit at her full retirement age, 66.

Keep in mind that the wife(in this example) can’t collect Social Security based on her husband’s record until the husband files for benefits, as well.  And even if the husband starts his benefits as early as age 62, the wife’s benefits would be based on the amount he would be entitled to at his full retirement age, Ms. Clark says.

What if the husband already has been collecting his full retirement benefit for a few years?  The wife’s benefit would be based on his current payment amount.

The Social Security Administration Web site has a quick calculator to help you determine your individual benefit amount at www.ssa.gov/OACT/quickcalc.  You also can call Social Security at 800-772-1213 or find a local office using the “Social Security Office Locator” by going to www.ssa.gov, and clicking on “Find a Social Security office” in the left-hand column.