One of the most important decisions facing retiring workers in the United States is deciding when to claim their Social Security benefit. Workers are eligible to claim their retirement benefit anytime between age 62 and age 70. However, the decision of when to claim Social Security benefits has important implications for the amount of the monthly benefit the worker will receive in retirement. Social Security benefits are structured such that the earlier a worker claims, the smaller the monthly benefit he or she will receive. However, these adjustments are actuarially fair so, on average, workers will receive about the same amount in total lifetime payments no matter when they claim. Thus, from the standpoint of the average worker the decision about when to claim his or her benefit is not likely to have a large impact on his or her financial well-being. Understanding the financial implication of the worker’s claiming decision is more complicated if he is married.    

Married individual are often eligible to receive Social Security benefits based on the earnings history of their spouse. For example, widow(er)s are eligible to receive a survivor benefit, a monthly payment equivalent in value to the retirement benefit that the deceased spouse would otherwise receive if he or she were still living. Like the retirement benefit, the timing of the worker’s claiming decision affects the amount of the survivor benefit his or her widow(er) may receive. The earlier a worker claims the smaller the survivor benefit their spouse is entitled to receive in the event of the worker’s death. Unlike the retirement benefit, the adjustment in the survivor benefit is not actuarially fair so when a worker claims early, he or she reduces both the monthly and the lifetime benefit amount paid to their widow(er). In effect, the financial circumstances of a widow(er) receiving a survivor benefit unambiguously affected by the timing of the claiming decision of his or her spouse.     

In this analysis, I use experimental vignettes embedded within a survey of a convenience sample of married U.S. citizens to evaluate several questions related to the claiming decision and the survivor benefit.

I find that when the effect of the claiming decision on the survivor benefit is made clear to the respondents, they are more likely to favor delayed claiming on the part of the primary earner. Second, I find that secondary earners are more likely to recommend that the primary earner delay the claiming decision when the benefit change is defined as a “gain from delayed claiming” rather than a “loss from early claiming.” Finally, I find that primary earners are more sensitive to the introduction of information about the effect of the primary earners decision on the value of the survivor benefit. This last result suggests that primary earners, more so than secondary earners, feel that primary earners have a responsibility to provide for their surviving spouse. This effect emerges when the respondents are primed with information about the survivor benefit.