Social Security Claiming Strategies Have Changed — Here’s What Still Works

Some once-popular Social Security strategies, including restricted spousal applications and traditional file-and-suspend, have largely disappeared. Delaying benefits, survivor planning, and coordinated claiming can still matter. Lena Evans/Shutterstock

If your Social Security strategy came from a retirement book published 10 or 15 years ago, there is a real possibility that part of it is obsolete. Congress eliminated or restricted some of the best-known claiming techniques, including the old “file and suspend” strategy and most restricted applications for spousal benefits. Yet Social Security planning itself is far from dead. Retirees can still increase benefits by delaying, coordinating retirement and survivor benefits, improving their earnings record, and in some circumstances reconsidering a claiming decision they already made. The challenge in 2026 is knowing which Social Security claiming strategies still work and which belong in the retirement-planning history books.

The Old Restricted Spousal-Benefit Strategy Is Essentially Gone