Suze Orman Told Married Couples to Make One Social Security Move. The Census Just Showed Why

Suze Orman’s one instruction to married couples, have the higher earner wait until 70 to claim Social Security, got a number behind it on Sunday: one in five households headed by a retiree lived on less than $2,000 a month in 2025, the Census Bureau’s survey shows, and nearly four in five of those households are one person living alone. The count comes from Investopedia’s analysis of the Current Population Survey: about 6.6 million retiree households under the line, a typical income inside that group of about $1,270 a month, and a typical Social Security check of about $970.

Married retirees rarely show up in that bottom fifth: about 7% of married retiree households take in less than $2,000 a month, against more than a third of retirees who live alone. Read that way, the Census count is a warning aimed at married couples, since the household in the bottom fifth is so often a couple that became one person; the limit is that the count measures income, and a widow with savings is not in trouble, so the warning is about which Social Security check survives.

Orman put it plainly in June. "If you are married, please have the higher earner wait as long as possible, ideally until 70," she wrote on her site. "The surviving spouse receives the larger of the two benefits." Here is how that plays out for one widow, 72, with a $1.2 million IRA and a $3,100 Social Security check, and how your own budget compares.

Who the Census counts under $2,000

The typical retiree household took in about $53,100 last year, about $4,400 a month; 21% lived on less than $2,000.

Inside that bottom group, the typical household lived on about $15,200 a year, just under the Census Bureau’s poverty threshold of $15,440 for a person 65 or older living alone. Nearly three in four of those retirees get at least 90% of their income from Social Security and Supplemental Security Income, and their median benefit was about $970 a month, against an average retired-worker check of $2,089 as of September, according to the Social Security Administration. A small check, claimed early or earned on a short work record, and nothing behind it.

Living alone is the dividing line, and age is not: married retirees had a median household income of about $83,000, retirees alone about $35,000. One caution: Census and Social Security researchers find that retirees underreport pension and account income, so the bottom fifth may be somewhat smaller than it looks.

The couple who matched the typical household

The widow in this example is 72 and lives in Ohio in the house she and her husband paid off years ago. He died in the spring. His full Social Security benefit at 67 would have been $2,500 a month. He waited until 70, which raised it 24% to $3,100. Her own benefit, from a shorter career, was $1,300. Together their checks came to $4,400 a month, the same figure the Census gives for the typical retiree household’s total income, against spending of about $3,600, so the checks alone left $800 over. Behind the checks sat his rollover IRA, now hers, with $1.2 million in it. She treated it as her own, which lets her wait until 73 for required withdrawals.

The day the second check stops

Social Security pays a surviving spouse the larger of the two benefits and stops the smaller one. Her $1,300 ended. His $3,100 continued, because the survivor benefit carries the delayed-retirement credits he earned by waiting. The household’s Social Security fell by $1,300 a month, or 30%, on the day she became a household of one.

Now run it the other way. Had he claimed at 62, his check would have been 70% of $2,500, or $1,750. That is what she would be living on today: $250 a month under the Census line, in the bottom fifth with the 6.6 million. His decision at 62 is worth $1,350 a month to her for life, $16,200 a year, $243,000 over 15 years before any cost-of-living increase. That is what Orman means by a gift. If you are the higher earner in your house and have not claimed, that decision is still yours.

Her budget against the number

Her costs did not fall much when he died. The house, the car and Medicare bill one person about what they billed two.

• Property tax, insurance, utilities and upkeep on the paid-off house: $1,050
• Groceries and eating out: $600
• Car: insurance, gas, repairs: $400
• Medicare Part B $202.90, Medigap Plan G $180, Part D $47, dental and out of pocket $150: $580
• Phone, internet, TV: $150
• Church and gifts: $250
• Trips to see the kids: $300
• Clothing, personal care, everything else: $270

Total: $3,600 a month, $43,200 a year.

Set that against the Census table. Her survivor check covers 86% of her budget. The gap is $500 a month, $6,000 a year, which is 0.50% of her IRA. The typical household in the bottom fifth, at $1,270 a month, has 35% of her budget to live on; the $2,000 line itself is 56% of it. Her $3,600 for one person in a paid-off house is ordinary. If your budget looks like hers, the number that decides which Census column you land in is the survivor check, and you set it by when the higher earner claims.

The tax bill that arrives at 73

She files single from 2027, which is where the rest of the warning sits. Her first full year alone is easy. Social Security of $37,200 plus a $6,000 IRA draw puts her provisional income at $24,600, under the $25,000 line where benefits start to be taxed, and her deductions as a single filer 65 or older come to $24,150. Her federal income tax is $0.

The year she turns 73, the IRS sets her withdrawal. The first required minimum distribution on $1.2 million is $1,200,000 divided by 26.5, or $45,283. Under 2026 rules, that makes $29,901 of her Social Security taxable, lifts her taxable income to $51,045 and produces a tax bill of $5,942, $645 into the 22% bracket. The same $82,483 on a joint return by a couple both over 65 would owe $2,068. The difference, $3,873, is the widow’s penalty: the same money at the single schedule with half the deductions.

Medicare has the same shape. The 2026 surcharge line for a single filer is $109,000 of modified adjusted gross income; for a couple it is $218,000. She has $33,816 of room under it at 73, and a larger IRA, a part-time job or a Roth conversion in the wrong year would use it fast. If you expect to file single one day, those are the lines to plan around while you can still convert on a joint return.

Where the plan is weak

Her numbers are comfortable because of two things her husband did: he waited to 70, and he left an IRA she draws at half a percent a year. Without the IRA she lives on $3,100 against $3,600 of costs, and trims. Without the delayed claim she is under $2,000 with a $1.2 million account she must start draining at 73, and at $1,850 a month the draw is 1.8% of the balance, sustainable, with every dollar taxed as ordinary income on a single return. The Census bottom fifth is mostly people who had neither. If you have a higher earner in the house, the lever is the one Orman keeps pointing at.

The bottom line

The Census says 1 in 5 retiree households live on less than $2,000 a month, and nearly 4 in 5 of them live alone. For a married couple, the survivor’s check is the number that keeps you out of that fifth. Here, waiting to 70 put the widow $1,100 above the line with a $3,100 check; claiming at 62 would have put her $250 below it. Her $1.2 million IRA covers a $6,000 gap at zero tax this year and brings a $5,942 bill at 73 that a couple on the same income would not pay. Check your own budget against $2,000 a month and against the larger of your two checks. If those numbers are close, the higher earner’s claiming date is the most valuable decision left in your house.

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