I’m 85 and my partner is 69, and we’re wondering if marriage makes sense from a Social Security standpoint

It’s a nice thing that some people manage to find love later in life. Often, people who meet later on opt not to get married, either because they’re divorced or widowed and have been through that before, or they simply don’t feel a need.

In this Reddit post, we have a couple who are ages 69 and 85, and they’re trying to decide if getting married makes sense from a Social Security standpoint. Both have been collecting benefits for a good number of years and are wondering if there’s an upside to tying the knot.

It’s a nice thing to get married for emotional and personal reasons. And in some cases, it can be beneficial from a financial standpoint.  

How getting married later in life can impact your Social Security benefits

Getting married means being eligible for certain Social Security benefits — spousal and survivor. Spousal benefits max out at 50% of the spouse’s Social Security benefit at their full retirement age. Survivor benefits can be worth up to 100% of the spouse’s benefit if the recipient files at full retirement age (FRA).

In this situation, it could be that one member of the couple has a much larger Social Security benefit than the other. In that case, getting married and having the person with the smaller monthly checks claim spousal benefits could result in an increase.

Let’s say the 85-year-old is the higher earner who gets $3,000 a month in Social Security that they claimed at FRA, and the 69-year-old is the lower earner whose monthly benefit equals $1,400. Getting married could entitle the lower earner to a spousal benefit worth $1,500, which constitutes a raise.

Then, if the 85-year-old passes away before their spouse (which isn’t guaranteed to happen, but it’s not unreasonable to think that a person that much older would pass away first), the lower earner would be bumped up to a survivor benefit from Social Security. At that point, they’d be eligible for $3,000 a month.

To be clear, Social Security only allows recipients to collect one monthly benefit at a time. Getting married would not entitle either person here to their own benefit plus a spousal or survivor benefit on top of that. However, it’s possible that getting married could, in this situation, result in a boost to Social Security.

Be careful when getting married for financial reasons

Although there can be financial benefits to getting married, there can also be huge costs if a marriage doesn’t work out (not to mention the emotional mess of going through a divorce). It’s a lovely thing to marry later in life. However, the couple here should think twice about getting married for the express purpose of being able to get more money out of Social Security.

If they happen to be contemplating marriage already and go through with it because of their love for one another, and boosted Social Security income ends up being a perk on the side, so be it. But that’s very different from getting married simply to score a larger monthly Social Security check.