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If the DIB of a person entitled to reduced spouse's benefits terminates before FRA
deemed filing for RIB will apply. Reduce the RIB to which the person becomes entitled
by the number of months of RIB entitlement before FRA.
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Reduce the spouse's reduced benefit further by the amount of the RIB reduction. This
is the exception to the rule that a spouse's benefit amount is not affected by later
RIB entitlement.
EXAMPLE: A person is entitled to a reduced spouse benefit. They are not insured for reduced
RIB. The OB of 400 is reduced for age to 300. The next month DIB starts with a PIA
of 280. We subtract the 280 from the 300 payable as a spouse and get 20 as the excess
spouse benefit. Their total benefit is 280 as an HA and 20 as a spouse (the same 300
they were already getting). Note that if the DIB had started the same month they would
have received 280 as HA and 90 (400 minus 280 is 120 which is reduced to 90) as a
spouse for a total of 370 but that is the penalty for being a reduced spouse first.
Later the DIB ends and RIB starts. The RIB is 280 reduced to 270. We subtract the
270 from the 300 and get 30 as the spouse benefit. If we were to pay that with the
reduced RIB of 270 their total benefit would still be 300 and there would be no loss
from changing from DIB to reduced RIB. To solve that, we have to also subtract the
amount of the RIB reduction from the excess spouse. So we subtract the 10 from the
30 and pay 270 as RIB and 20 as a spouse for a total of 290.
The reason is this. When we subtracted the reduced RIB from the excess spouse we were
letting the spouse benefit make up for the reduction in the RIB. So we were basically
giving the RIB reduction back in the excess spouse benefit. Instead we subtract the
reduced RIB and the amount of the RIB reduction from the excess spouse amount. That
is the same result as if we had just subtracted the full RIB of 280 from the 300.
We would then have had 20 as the excess spouse benefit and 280 reduced to 270 RIB
for a total of 290. If there had been no DIB the reduced RIB would have been subtracted
and the payment would have remained at 300 (270 as RIB and 30 as spouse). The existence
of the DIB requires that the total payable be decreased when the DIB ends and RIB
starts.