Personal Finance & Estate › Social Security › Social Security (OASDI)
Spousal benefit (incl. divorced spouses)
Since 1939· Government program
Law or rule (2026)Set by statute, regulation or the agency; numbers change yearly.
A husband or wife, or an ex-spouse after a 10-year marriage, can collect up to half of the worker's full Social Security benefit.
See it on the Personal Finance & Estate map →How it works
The spousal benefit is up to 50% of the worker's full-retirement-age amount if taken at the spouse's own full retirement age; at 62 it is about 32.5%. It earns nothing for waiting past full retirement age. The worker usually must have filed first. Since a 2015 law, filing for your own benefit counts as filing for spousal too; you get the higher of the two amounts, not both added together. Divorced spouses qualify after 10 years of marriage if unmarried, without reducing anyone else's check.
Why it matters for you
It lets a lower-earning or stay-at-home spouse draw on the household's stronger work record, and many divorced spouses never realize they qualify.
Rules, limits and sources (2026)
Added by the Social Security Amendments of 1939; divorced-spouse benefits came in 1965 and the 10-year rule in 1977. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 closed 'file and suspend' strategies.
Watch out for
Couples with big age gaps or uneven records face genuinely different best answers, and calculators can disagree depending on assumptions about lifespan.
Connections (2)
▸Spousal benefit (incl. divorced spouses) is a family benefit of Social Security (OASDI)Law or rule (2026)
How they connect
The spousal benefit lets a spouse or qualifying ex draw up to half the worker's full benefit from the same earnings record, without reducing the worker's own check. It turns Social Security from a personal pension into household coverage.
When it applies
Added in 1939 for wives; later laws and 1970s Supreme Court rulings extended it equally to husbands.
The rule
Section 202 of the Social Security Act and SSA's benefit statistics document the rules and the number of people receiving it.
Watch out for
Because more women now have their own work records, fewer rely on spousal benefits; whether the 50% design still fits modern families is debated.
▸Spousal benefit (incl. divorced spouses) shapes When to claim Social Security: 62 vs. 67 vs. 70Depends on you
How they connect
Couples must coordinate: the spousal check usually requires the worker to have filed, earns nothing for waiting past full retirement age, and since 2015 is deemed filed together with your own. A common pattern is the lower earner claiming earlier and the higher earner delaying.
When it applies
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 ended 'file and suspend' and restricted applications for anyone born after January 1, 1954.
How sure?
SSA's deemed-filing rules and spousal reduction tables; free calculators apply them.
Watch out for
With age gaps, divorce or uneven records, the best order varies; ask a planner to run your household's numbers.