Q: I have recently lost a good deal of my 401(k) money that was going to be my retirement nest egg. So now I've got to work longer than I originally planned. I'm thinking I won't be able to retire until I'm 70. Will I get extra Social Security benefits because I'm delaying my retirement? If so, how much extra will I get?

A: If you decide to put off starting your Social Security benefits until sometime after your full retirement age (age 66 for most people), then those benefits will be augmented with something the government calls "delayed retirement credits" once you eventually apply for them.

The credit amounts to an increase of two-thirds of 1 percent for each month you delay retirement beyond age 66. That comes out to 8 percent per year. So if you wait until age 70 to start your Social Security benefits, you'd get an extra 32 percent tacked on to your monthly retirement benefits.

That's not a bad little bonus. But remember, you'd be sacrificing four years worth of Social Security benefits in order to get those delayed retirement credits.

In other words, you could choose to start your Social Security retirement benefits at age 66 even though you will continue to work full time. The penalties that normally reduce benefits paid to Social Security recipients who continue to work DO NOT apply to folks once they reach their full retirement age. So once you reach age 66, you could be making $1 million dollars per year and you would be eligible for your Social Security retirement benefits.

To understand your options, let's look at this simple example. Let's say your Social Security retirement benefit at age 66 is $2,000 per month.

Under option one, you could start your Social Security at age 66. That means between age 66 and age 70, you would receive $96,000 in Social Security retirement benefits. (That's not counting yearly cost-of-living increases.)

Under option two, you would wait until age 70 to start your Social Security. You'd give up that $96,000 in potential pre-age 70 Social Security benefits, but you would get delayed retirement credits of $640 per month added to your ongoing Social Security rate. So you'd get $2,640 per month from age 70 on.

If you knew you were going to live a long, long time after age 70, option two might be the better choice. But personally, I'd go with option one and grab my Social Security benefits at age 66.

Q: I thought a wife was supposed to get half of her husband's Social Security. But my husband is getting $1,800 per month, and I'm getting only $800 per month in wife's benefits. And this has nothing to do with reductions for early retirement, because my husband didn't take his Social Security until he was almost 68, and I waited until age 66 to start my wife's rate. Can you explain this?

A: Because he started taking his Social Security benefits after age 66, your husband must be getting "delayed retirement credits" as explained in the answer to the first question.

But here's a quirky little footnote to that rule: A wife doesn't share in that largesse. For some reason I've never fully understood, a dependent wife's benefit from Social Security is based only on her husband's age-66 retirement rate, not on his actual benefit that might be augmented by delayed retirement credits.

In other words, your husband's age-66 Social Security benefit must be $1,600 per month and you're getting half of that, or $800 per month.

And here's one final quirky footnote to these rules. Even though a wife does not share in the delayed retirement bonus, a widow does! So, if your husband dies before you do, you'll start getting widow's benefits of $1,800 per month, the rate that includes his delayed retirement credits.

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