How Does Social Security Claiming Respond to Incentives? Considering Husbands’ and Wives’ Benefits Separately

Most women receive some Social Security benefits based upon their husbands’ earnings history, but husbands’ benefit claiming is inconsistent with maximizing lifetime benefits for the couple. I show that husbands’ claiming behavior responds to the actuarial incentives from their retired worker benefits. Not responding to incentives from spouse and survivor formulas reduces wives’ lifetime benefits. Rule changes to the Social Security benefit calculation, the age difference between spouses, and the relative strength of the wife’s labor force history creates variation in incentives. Segments of the population predicted to be more responsive to incentives provides similar results to the main specification.