Family
Spousal Benefits: How Much Social Security a Spouse Gets
A spouse can get up to half of the worker’s full retirement age amount. At 62 that falls to 32.5% when full retirement age is 67.
Your monthly benefit
$940
from June 2028
Starting in June 2028, you would get about $940 a month: your own $640.00 plus a spousal top-up of $300.00.
A box needs a change, so this answer is greyed: see the message in red.
Sources (Social Security Administration unless named): Benefits for Spouses; What you could get from Family benefits. Checked October 29, 2026.
A spousal benefit is a monthly benefit paid to a husband or wife on the other’s work record. It pays up to half of the worker’s full amount: the benefit the worker would get at full retirement age (SSA’s family benefits page). The spouse gets that whole half only by starting at their own full retirement age, unless they care for the worker’s child who is under 16 or disabled. Starting at 62 can bring it down to 32.5% of the worker’s full amount (SSA’s page on benefits for spouses). A spouse with a retirement benefit of their own does not get the two added together: SSA pays their own benefit, plus a top-up if half of the worker’s amount is larger.
Type both full-retirement-age amounts (each person’s Social Security Statement at my Social Security shows an estimate of theirs), your date of birth and the age you plan to start. The calculator applies SSA’s rules for spousal benefits in your browser and sends nothing. Its answer is an estimate: SSA works out the exact amount from both records when you apply.
How much are spousal benefits from Social Security?
The full spousal benefit is half of the worker’s primary insurance amount, the monthly benefit the worker would get at full retirement age (20 CFR 404.333). This page calls that the worker’s full amount. Because the spousal benefit is figured from it, the worker’s own claiming age does not change it. A worker who claims at 62 takes a smaller check, but the spouse’s half is still half of the full amount. A worker who waits until 70 earns delayed retirement credits, but those raise only the worker’s own check (20 CFR 404.313(e)(2)).
For example, a worker born in 1966 who has earned a steady $80,000 a year since age 22 would get about $2,910 a month at full retirement age, by this site’s estimate with SSA’s formula. A husband or wife who waits until their own full retirement age could get up to half of that. How benefits are calculated shows how the worker’s full amount comes from their earnings.
Your benefit, coupled to half of your spouse’s
- Your spouse’s full benefit$2,400.00
- Half of it, where the coupling arm sits$1,200.00
- Your own benefit, starting at 64$640.00
- Spousal top-up, starting at 64$300.00
- More a month by starting at your full retirement age (67)$260.00
Starting in June 2028, you would get about $940 a month: your own $640.00 plus a spousal top-up of $300.00.
The left wagon carries your spouse’s full benefit; the brass arm sits at half of it. The right wagon carries your own benefit at the age you start, and on top of it the spousal top-up, which fills the gap between your own full benefit and that half. Starting before your full retirement age cuts both; the dashed outline is what waiting until then would add. Waiting longer raises only your own benefit. They are drawn for the numbers in the spouse calculator above (its own example until you change them) and follow them as you type; the slider tries other starting ages. Our drawing; the amounts are worked out by this site with SSA’s rules for spouses.
Sources (Social Security Administration unless named): Benefits for Spouses; What you could get from Family benefits. Checked October 29, 2026.
How much less is a spousal benefit at 62?
At 62, a spousal benefit is 32.5% of the worker’s full amount instead of 50%, if your full retirement age is 67 (SSA). Every month you start before your full retirement age cuts it: SSA takes off 25/36 of 1% for each of the first 36 months early, and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond 36 (SSA; 20 CFR 404.410(b)). At 62 with a full retirement age of 67, you start 60 months early, and that takes off 35% of the spousal benefit.
Here is the spousal benefit as a share of the worker’s full amount for a spouse whose full retirement age is 67 (born in 1960 or later), by our arithmetic on SSA’s monthly rates (SSA):
- At 62: 32.5%
- At 63: 35%
- At 64: 37.5%
- At 65: about 41.7%
- At 66: about 45.8%
- At 67 or later: 50%
Your own full retirement age depends on your year of birth, so the steps shift a little if yours is earlier (see full retirement age). If you were born in 1957, for example, it is 66 and 6 months, and 62 is 54 months early (SSA’s table).
SSA’s own example uses a worker whose full amount is $1,600, so the full spousal benefit is $800. The spouse starts 36 months before full retirement age, and 36 times 25/36 of 1% takes off 25%. The spouse gets $600 a month, which is 37.5% of the worker’s full amount (SSA).
The cut does not go away when you reach full retirement age. SSA then gives back only certain months: months in which it held back your benefit under the earnings limit, and, for a spouse’s benefit, months with a child in care (20 CFR 404.412).
Does the worker have to be getting benefits first?
Yes. A husband or wife can get a spousal benefit only on the record of a worker who is entitled to retirement or disability benefits, which means the worker has applied (20 CFR 404.330). Until the worker files, there is no spousal benefit, even if both of you are old enough. Divorced spouses are the exception, explained below.
Filing and then pausing does not work either. While a worker’s benefit is suspended at their request, to earn delayed credits, a husband or wife cannot be paid on their record either. That rule came in with the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (Public Law 114-74, section 831(b)).
Two more conditions apply to most couples. You must be 62 or older, unless you care for the worker’s child (see below). And you must have been married for at least a year, unless, for example, the two of you are the parents of a child (404.330(a)).
Can you get your own benefit and a spousal benefit?
Not both in full. SSA pays your own retirement benefit first. If half of your spouse’s full amount is more than your own full amount, it adds the difference as a spousal top-up. “We don’t add the payment amounts together,” SSA says on its family benefits page. If your own full amount is half of your spouse’s or more, there is no top-up at all (404.330(d)).
Take a couple with made-up round numbers. Your own full amount is $700. Your spouse’s is $2,000, so the full spousal benefit is $1,000. Started at your full retirement age, you get your $700 plus a $300 top-up: $1,000 in all, not $1,700.
Start at 62 instead, with a full retirement age of 67 and your spouse already getting benefits, and each part is cut at its own rate. Your $700 is cut by 30%, to $490 (SSA’s table shows 70% at 62). The $300 top-up is cut by 35%, to $195. You get $685 a month (20 CFR 404.411(d)).
What is deemed filing?
Deemed filing means that applying for one benefit counts as applying for the other. It covers everyone born on or after January 2, 1954, the people who turned 62 after 2015. If you can get a spousal benefit in a month you get your own retirement benefit, you are treated as having applied for both, and the other way round (Public Law 114-74, section 831(a)). So you cannot take only the spousal benefit and leave your own to grow until 70.
It applies at any age, before or after full retirement age. The one exception is a spouse who gets the spousal benefit because they care for the worker’s child. And it applies only once you can get both. If your spouse has not filed yet, you can start your own benefit; the top-up is added from the month your spouse’s benefits start, cut for age if you are still under full retirement age then.
People born before January 2, 1954 had an older rule that applied only before full retirement age, but all of them are now past 70, when delayed credits stop.
Does a spousal benefit grow if you wait past full retirement age?
No. Delayed retirement credits raise only a worker’s own retirement benefit, for months from full retirement age to 70 (20 CFR 404.313(a)). A spousal benefit reaches its top, half of the worker’s full amount, at your full retirement age and stays there. Waiting longer adds nothing to it.
Waiting can still pay for the worker. For anyone born after January 1, 1943, each year past full retirement age adds 8% to the worker’s own benefit (SSA), and those credits carry over to the husband or wife as a survivor benefit if the worker dies first. See survivor benefits and the best age to claim.
What if you care for the worker’s child?
A husband or wife of any age can get the spousal benefit while caring for the worker’s child who is under 16 or disabled and gets child’s benefits on the worker’s record (20 CFR 404.330(c)). For those months the benefit is not cut for age (SSA). The child gets a benefit too: up to half of the worker’s full amount while the worker is alive (20 CFR 404.353).
For a spouse under 62, the benefit stops when there is no longer a child under 16 or disabled getting benefits on the record (20 CFR 404.332(b)(4)). From 62, age alone qualifies.
Can a divorced spouse get spousal benefits?
Yes, if the marriage lasted at least 10 years before the divorce became final, you are not married now, you are 62 or older, and your own full amount is less than half of your ex-spouse’s (20 CFR 404.331). The amount follows the same rules: up to half of the ex-spouse’s full amount, less for starting early.
Unlike a current spouse, you may not need your ex to have applied. If you have been divorced for at least two years and your ex is at least 62, you can collect on their record whether or not they have filed. Your benefit does not reduce anyone else’s: payments to ex-spouses do not count toward the family maximum (SSA). Marrying again generally ends a divorced spouse’s benefit (404.332(b)(3)).
How does the family maximum affect a spouse?
Usually not at all: a worker and one spouse never go over it on their own. The family maximum caps the total paid each month on one worker’s record. For a worker who turns 62 in 2027, it is 150% of the first $1,712 of the worker’s full amount, plus 272% of the part up to $2,471, plus 134% of the part up to $3,223, plus 175% of the rest (SSA’s family maximum formula). The worker’s own benefit is never cut for it. Everyone else on the record is cut in proportion until the total fits (20 CFR 404.404).
The cap is always at least one and a half times the worker’s full amount, which is all a worker and one spouse can draw together. It bites when children are paid on the record too. The map below shows everyone who can be paid on one record: spouse, ex-spouse, survivors and children.
- The worker’s full benefit (PIA)What the worker gets at full retirement age
- SpouseUp to half of it, less if started before the spouse’s full retirement age
- ChildUp to half of it while the worker is living
- Widow or widowerUp to 100% of the worker’s benefit (with any credits for waiting), from 60 at 71.5%
- Child after a deathAbout 75% of the worker’s benefit
- Family maximum150% to about 188% of the PIA in all (bend points $1,712, $2,471, $3,223)
Does work affect a spousal benefit?
It can, before full retirement age. If the worker is under full retirement age and earns over the yearly limit, SSA holds back benefits on the worker’s record, the spouse’s included; a spouse divorced for two years or more is not affected (20 CFR 404.415(b)). If you work yourself, only your own benefits are held back. In 2027 the limit before the year of full retirement age is $25,560 a year (SSA). See the earnings limit.
How is a spousal benefit different from a survivor benefit?
A spousal benefit is paid while the worker is alive, and a survivor benefit after the worker dies. They follow different rules (SSA’s survivors page):
- Top amount: half of the worker’s full amount for a spouse; all of it for a widow or widower, plus any delayed credits the worker earned.
- Earliest age: 62 for a spouse; 60 for a widow or widower (50 with a disability).
- Deemed filing: it covers a spousal benefit, not a survivor benefit.
- The worker’s claiming age: it makes no difference to a spousal benefit, but it can cap a survivor benefit if the worker claimed early.
Figures checked October 29, 2026.
Questions people ask
Can my spouse collect 50% of my Social Security?
Up to 50% of your full-retirement-age amount, not of the check you actually get, and only if your spouse starts at their own full retirement age (SSA). Earlier is less, 32.5% at 62 with a full retirement age of 67, and a spouse whose own benefit is larger gets no top-up.
Does taking Social Security at 62 affect the spousal benefit?
Your taking it at 62 does not, because your spouse’s benefit is figured from your full amount whenever you start; it does lower what your spouse could get later as a survivor. Your spouse taking it at 62 does: their spousal benefit can fall to 32.5% of your full amount (SSA).
What is the maximum spousal benefit for Social Security?
Half of the worker’s full amount, at the spouse’s full retirement age. In 2027 the largest benefit for a worker retiring at full retirement age is $4,188 a month (SSA), so the spousal benefit on such a record could be up to about half of that.
Does a stay-at-home spouse get Social Security?
Yes. A spouse needs no work record of their own: the spousal benefit comes from the worker’s record, once the worker has applied and the spouse is 62 or cares for the worker’s young child (20 CFR 404.330).
How much Social Security does a divorced spouse get?
The same as a married spouse: up to half of the ex-spouse’s full amount, less for starting before full retirement age. The marriage must have lasted 10 years and you must not be married now (20 CFR 404.331).
Can I take my own benefit at 62 and a spousal benefit later?
Yes, if your spouse has not filed yet. Your own benefit starts at 62, cut for age, and the top-up is added from the month your spouse’s benefits start, cut too if you are still under full retirement age then. If your spouse has already filed, deemed filing starts both at once.