My wife turns 65 in April. She qualifies for social security…

First of all, your wife's full retirement age is 66+2 months.

Her spousal benefit would also be reduced by a percentage due to her teachers' pension.

Normally at 66+2 months she would be entitled to 50% of your full retirement benefit at your full retirement age. Your full retirement age was 66, so your full retirement benefit was reduced by approximately 8% at age 65.

I don't know why they brought up the marriage issue, that relates to a completely different situation.

I'm amazed that you got through to SS on the phone. Often the HOLD is so long (up to 1 hour) that people give up & hange up.

The bot***** *****ne is that it is doubtful that your wife's spousal benefit would be greater than her own benefit if she has any quarter's of work under the Social Security system.

If not, she may be entitled to a small spousal pension after all the reductions for her other pension & for collecting early (before 66 + 2 months).

Whenever a teacher's pension offset is in play, I always advise your to schedule an appointment with the closest SSA local office to go over the computations that are made to make sure what you are being told is accurate & makes sense.

You should have asked them if you got divorced and then remarried would that change their answer. You'd still be on HOLD waiting for that one. :]

Steve G.