Yep…my DH signed up for Part A…and is also currently working. Like @jym626 , he will complete the credible coverage form which I believe will make a penalty not happen.
I just want to say that thanks to the announcement from @Barbalot – I did go through my records — there aren’t any mistakes on my record, but it was worth a look, just to understand the impact that a mistake might cause. (There actually are some years way back when where -0- income is shown when I probably did have modest earnings, but with the indexing numbers and my full records I was able to figure out what I would have needed to earn in order to impact the calculation, and it wouldn’t be enough even with a multiplier applied.)
@jym626, I knew there was a caveat for still working and credible coverage, but not sure of the details of spouse still working, as it does not apply to my situation.
OK, I hate it when people to this but after reading it 3 times I just have to speak up. It’s “creditable” coverage, not credible. 
Oops!
oops-- but actually credible makes better sense… but leave it to Medicare to not make sense!
@barbalot, colleges were exempt from Social Security coverage for some years. I had four years of work on-campus in college that count as zero earnings for SS. Not sure if that applied to all colleges, but that may be the reason.
@NJres - after reading your post about the weighting, I created a spreadsheet and entered my earnings history & the weighting factors. Interesting quirk – given the weighting, my income has never caught up to the level it was the year before my daughter was born.-- even though in dollars I now make almost twice as much. So I can really see where that mommy-penalty I mentioned above hits – I cut back on hours and didn’t match my pre-DD earnings until she was age 14.
But having this info does help add another important piece of data to the “when should I retire” equation. I’m 65 now-- will hit FRA early next year on my 66th birthday – and being able to calculate the AIME (average indexed monthly earnings) makes it easier to see potential impact on future benefits. Definite value in continuing to work because my current earnings are enough over the average that each year at the current rate will push the average up significantly to make up for those low-income years.
I found a helpful article here-- after googling the question of how post-FRA income impacts benefits:
https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/does-working-past-age-70-affect-your-social-security-benefits
Basically the SS is recalculated on an annual basis so any year with a higher income than whatever is the lowest value in the 35-year earning history will replace that year and boost the average.
The article above is great because it also explores other issues like taxes and Medicare premiums.
Well, I contributed a lot to SS when I just started my career and then took a hiatus to raise the kids. I’ve since been earning variable amounts. Sadly, all the years I worked for the county and state government (which was a good portion of my working years), NOTHING was contributed to SS, so I have a bunch of 0s and will be getting rather low SS. Fortuantely, H has a good pension so I won’t be starving, even if I am a widow someday.
I have a friend who started collecting SS when she was 67. She has an 18-year-old who is still in high school. She continued to work and had a year when she made a lot of money. Her monthly SS payment (and her daughter’s) went up as a result.
@CountingDown I was thinking that might partly explain why I have $0 in those two years while I was working part-time at a state school college library. Those two summers I worked at a day camp sponsored by my local school system, so that, too, may not have been subject to Social Security withholding. At any rate, these jobs were so long ago I can’t imagine there’s a paper trail at this point, and each year’s earnings would probably have been $2,000 or less. So I guess I’ll just have to let this go.
@NJres thanks for the explanation of the indexing factors. I had no idea, but assuming I made a pretty low amount, even though the indexing factor is high, I don’t think it will matter.
Riddle me this …. I have tried on several occasions to figure out my potential benefits as relate to husband/ex husband/myself. It feels like a word problem involving trains travelling at different speeds to different locations and who will get there first.
I, 52, was married to H1 for more than 10 years so theoretically I could have collected based on his income had I not gotten remarried, right?
I am now married to H2 who is 57 for several (but not 10) years and he is eligible per SS website for max SS. I have worked close to (or at) 35 years now making decent money and know that my SS at 67 is $2101 and at 70 is $2612.
How on earth can I figure out what my SS could/should be compared to what I’d received based on being H’s wife – ie do I earn more on my own earnings or his and how does him dying change that?
When can/could I start collecting based on his earnings as opposed to mine --for example “retiring” at 60 when he retires at 65 (as I believe he is the last year of the FRA at 65).
That’s impossible. I believe the last year for FRA at 65 was for people born in 1937.
Those of use born from 1943-1954 have FRA at 66. If your current husband is age 57, then his FRA would be age 67 – see https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/retirechart.html
You’ll find some info about spousal benefits here: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/quickcalc/spouse.html
You have to be age 62 yourself in order to file for a spousal benefit – since you are 5 years younger than H2 it will work out that he will have reached FRA by then (or at least within the same year). If you file to receive your spousal benefit when you are age 62, then you would get 32.71% of his primary benefit amount. But you can’t pick and choose – when you file for your spousal benefit, that will trigger your own benefit – and SS will pay you whichever is higher. Since the maximum allowable benefit is currently $2861, assuming a hypothetical worker who retired this year at FRA got that, his 62-year-old spouse would get $935.80 a month. Of course, we can expect the maximum to go up over the next 10 years with CLA increases – but there is no way that 1/3 or even 1/2 of that (which is the maximum benefit you would get if you waited until age 67) — would even end up being more than your own benefit. And if you have a 35-year work history already, then nothing would cause your benefit to go down, since it would always be based on the 35 highest paying years.
If your H2 dies somewhere along the way, things are a lot more complicated – you can read about that here: https://www.ssa.gov/planners/survivors/ifyou.html
Can I be my current age for several years?
Not if you want to collect social security. Unless, of course, you are already of that certain age. 
I am. I’m 70. Age has its advantages. 
So I’m a complete novice with the concept of spousal benefits.
My DH is 64 and was a sole practitioner. He closed his practice last year and retired. I am 63, and my salary has been higher than his for quite a few years now.
Are you saying that he may be better off with a spousal benefit now? Or when I retire? Which of the calculators will tell me that?
Am I even asking the right questions? We just automatically assumed that each would get his/her own benefit.
chedva:
run your numbers on the advanced tab of https://opensocialsecurity.com.
It will calc a pv and suggest a claiming strategy with the best PV. (Note, however, that the suggestion does not account for taxes, or a possible further delay of claiming SS so you can do more tIRA-to-Roth conversions. Also note that some of the discussion above was for those born before Jan 2-54, which have different spousal rules.)
What’s a pv, @bluebayou ? Present value?