My mother-in-law (88) is entering her end-of-life stage. We are getting things organized.
It seems that the lady never collected Social Security. Family members report to us that she never qualified as she never worked enough quarters. But of course I would have thought that she would have gotten a portion of her husband’s Social Security. Some tell us that because her husband was government GS employee, SS would have come out of his pension (or something). So he never took SS and neither did she.
Does that make any sense?
If she simply failed to claim her SS, do you figure she is owed for what she didn’t collect?
They might be referring to the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), which basically screws anyone collecting a government pension out of a portion of the Social Security benefits they earned.
For Social Security employee and current Federal retiree here. If her husband was a longtime GS employee it’s possible that he never paid into Social Security, or at least never paid enough to qualify for SS benefits. That’s my situation; I only have 19 quarters of Social Security credits, so I can’t get Social Security. I’m on a Federal pension, what they call CS. There’s another type of federal pension, FE, which is mostly people who started working for the government after 1983, and does include eligibility for Social Security.
It’s possible that your mother-in-law could have been eligible for survivor benefits on her husband’s government pension. That would depend on what he did when he applied for it. In my case, since my wife was already deceased when I retired, I opted to collect a higher benefit with no survivor benefits attached.
Also true. My wife was collecting Social Security benefits when she died, but I’m not eligible for Social Security survivor benefits on her account because my federal pension is too high.
Lurkmeister is right. In 1987, Congress changed the federal retirement system but employees hired before 1983 were not affected by the changes unless they chose so. Federal employees who started before 1987 did not pay Social Security taxes, did not earn Social Security credits, and were not eligible for Social Security benefits (unless they earned those credits from other jobs). They earned pretty good retirement benefits through the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) If he spent most of his career working for the federal government, he would have earned CSRS benefits but was probably not eligible for Social Security benefits. In 1987, the CSRS was taken away for new employees but vested employees who already had five years of service (so if they started before 1983) were allowed to remain in the CSRS.
If he was still working for the federal government in 1987, he could have opted into the new retirement system (call Federal Employee Retirement System, of FERS) and been eligible to earn Social Security credits but few people did that. Those people had to start paying Social Security taxes. If they were close to retirement, it just wasn’t worth it for them. There is an explanation of the differences in the plans here.
Your mother-in-law was most likely eligible to receive a CSRS survivor’s benefit but, I believe it was also possible for retirees to elect to take a higher retirement benefit for themselves and choose to leave no retirement benefit. Eventually, Congress changed the rules to require spouses to approve their spouse’s forgoing survivor benefits but I don’t recall when that happened. If your father-in-law elected no survivor benefits (with or without her permission) she would not have received any when he died.
Yep, that pretty much sums it up. I had started my Federal job in 1976, and except for a year and a half before that all of my work had been part-time. When the new system was being implemented in 1987 everyone currently employed was given the chance to review what their pension options would be under both systems so they could make an informed decision. If, for example, I had been considering leaving Federal service before my CSRS would have kicked in, it might have been advantageous to switch to FERS so my SS credits would pile up.
And I do remember that when I retired I had to sign a statement that I had no current or former spouse who would have been eligible for survivor benefits before I could waive them in order to take the higher pension. Theoretically, this also means that if I were to remarry after retirement my spouse would not be eligible for survivor benefits.
I always thought this was a standard thing with all pensions. The old joke about a 16yo marrying an 80yo WWI veteran actually was urban legend and did not work, from what I gathered. (Much like the “…if I get a raise I’ll be in a higher tax bracket and take home even less money” legend.) I know the same applies to benefits, both with my private company pension and my brother got married just before he retired to ensure his girlfriend would get survivor and benefits from his (okay, not the same thing) Canadian federal government pension.
If I’m remembering correctly (after 15 years) when I retired I could have elected to have my pension calculated to include possible future spouse/survivor benefits. This would have meant a permanent reduction in my monthly payments, but if I had married after retirement my spouse would have been eligible for benefits. Since I figured the odds of my remarrying were infinitesimal I opted to take my maximum benefit.