@DaveS570424
Ahoy, Dave! My situation is that I am 11+ years older than my wife but there are no children in the picture; young kids would certainly add a higher level of seriousness to the consideration of when to take Social Security and how long to work. My wife and I were married when I was around 48.
My wife does not work due to health. I didn't want to leave a poor widow, so I crunched a lot of numbers for us for retirement planning. Using a complex spreadsheet, I was surprised to see that the risk for my wife of being 'poor' was if I died "early", before she was eligible for SS benefits, rather than if I died "late", having lived a long life of consuming her inheritance. Based on this I increased my plans for term life insurance to extend within a month of her 62 birthday, at which time we plan for her to take spousal benefits.
Of course, I could die before she's 62 and she could collect survivor's benefits at age 60, but I felt that the reduction in benefit at 60 was too much of a hit. For the OP's case, and possibly for yours, survivor's benefits begin at age 60 ...unless the surviving spouse is disabled, then it's 50, or if the surviving spouse is taking care of young children then age is immaterial (as long as the kids are "young"...)
The other tactic I used in our planning in addition to good term life insurance was to plan on taking my SS benefit at age 70 to maximize the dollar amount. My widow will get my entire benefit including the "Delayed Retirement Benefit" of the 32% increase over my age 66 (FRA for me) benefit (unless she takes this benefit before her own FRA of 67, in which case there will be a reduction in her benefit based on her age).
It is a tough nut to be 66 or 67 and contemplate working several more years to age 70. I did not, myself, even though I long thought that I would do so. I quit working at 66 and a month, then we lived off savings for the 4 years until I took SS at age 70. Granted, not everyone may be able to do this. But anyone with a much younger wife and possibly has young children will have to consider all this and determine if they want to work until 70 or not, or some in-between age between FRA and 70,
This so far has worked for me and my wife. Should I die next week she will be well provided for.
I have also read of people taking a different approach, and considering more from the viewpoint of the younger spouse. If the younger spouse is working they may want to consider "retiring" (stop working, at least for a while) when the older spouse retires. This is so they can spend some quality retirement years together before the elder spouse gets too old to travel, etc, etc. The flip side of that is they then potentially reduce their own possible SS retirement benefit and could be consigned to poverty when they are an elderly widow(er). The financial case has to be considered.
Lots to think about and consider.
Good luck!.
