At 67 With a $140K Pension, Should You Delay Social Security to 70?
A retiree with a solid pension weighs delaying Social Security to age 70 to boost his wife's survivor benefit after he's gone.
Here's a retirement question that hits harder than most: you're 67, pulling in $140,000 a year from a pension, and you're wondering whether to hold off on Social Security until 70. The real kicker? When you die, your wife's income drops to just $30,000 a year. That's not a planning hiccup — that's a financial cliff.
Delaying Social Security to 70 is one of the most powerful moves a married retiree can make, and this scenario is exactly why. Every year you wait past your full retirement age, your benefit grows by roughly 8%. That locked-in higher number doesn't just help you — it becomes the survivor benefit your spouse inherits. If your wife outlives you by a decade or more, that difference compounds into real money.
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The tension here is real though. You've got a $140K pension coming in right now. You don't *need* Social Security to pay the bills today. That's actually the ideal setup for a delay strategy — you can afford to wait, which means you *should* seriously consider it. The people who can least afford to delay are often the ones who benefit most from it, but having pension income as a bridge changes the calculus entirely.
The survivor benefit angle is the emotional and financial core of this decision. That $30,000 post-death income figure is stark. Social Security's spousal and survivor rules mean your claiming age directly sets your wife's long-term floor. A higher benefit locked in at 70 could meaningfully close that gap and give her financial stability you can't otherwise manufacture.
Bottom line: if your health is reasonable and your wife is younger or in good health, waiting to 70 looks like the right call here. You've got the pension as a bridge, the math favors delay, and your wife's future security depends partly on the decision you make right now. Continue reading at MarketWatch.com.
