My Google-fu and SDMB-fu have failed me. But this may be a common question and answer.
Let’s say a wife retires early (prior to full retirement age) and starts to collect SS benefits of $2200/month. Husband waits until age 70 to claim maximum benefits of $3900/month. Both of them are the same age.
If the husband dies at age 72, can the widow apply to increase her benefits by claiming survivor status? In other words, can she now claim the greater of the two benefits?
My wife and I have a comparable situation, where the difference in benefits is very significant, not because of different earning histories, but because one of us waited until age 70 to claim benefits.
The SSA site make it very difficult for me to understand if this is possible or not.
While hubby is still alive, and begins collecting his benefit, the wife can have either her benefit, or 50% of what the husband’s benefit was at his normal “full retirement age”, typically about age 66-ish. The wife does NOT get 50% of the husbands delayed age 70 benefit. All this is while hubby is still alive.
Once hubby dies it’s different.
In that case, the widowed wife will get the full benefit the late husband was getting. Including the extra for waiting to age 70. Or she’ll keep getting her own, whichever is larger. In your example the hubby’s age 70 benefit is the larger.
It’s still the case the couple’s total income goes down when the first dies. Because only one set of SS benefits are paid. More or less the rules amount to:
well I was getting SSI which was maybe 7 or 850 and my dad retired well 6 months later I get a call saying that due to my dad retiring they were redoing my disability and switching to ssa
there were 3 benefits to the move 1 the rules are different for ssa like you can earn more if you get a job and still get your check less stringent testing … 2 . 400 more dollars
the 3rd benefit is the government’s they aren’t actually paying anything … they’re just taking the money from dads account and giving it to me
This is very much incorrect. There is no “dad’s account” with money in it. The money your dad paid in was used to pay benefits to your grandparents’ generation; the benefits you and your dad receive are being paid mostly out of the SocSec taxes being paid by current workers.
Sort of aside: I have found that the local Social Security office staff are not only very knowledgeable about the arcane and mysterious (to us mere mortals) rules of benefits but very friendly and eager to help people maximize their benefits.
My experience: I don’t remember the exact conversation I had with the SS rep, but after my husband died over 20 years ago, I went to the local SS office, utterly clueless, and the person there discussed the situation, my options, and which options would be most financially advantageous for me.
Amazingly, a couple of years ago, I got a phone call from the local SS office and the very well-informed rep told me that it had come to their attention (some kind of automatic tickler?) that now I could get a higher benefit if I switched from claiming my late husband’s benefit to claiming my own. My mind was boggled! Someone actually oversees this stuff??
I’ve had good luck talking to them on the phone, but in-person would probably be good, too.
Maybe I’m naive, but I believe the people at Social Security fully understand how important benefits are to the recipients and they are committed to good service. I’ve certainly been impressed.
Thanks, everyone! I have no doubt that the SSA will be helpful. I’ve just told my wife to be sure (when I get hit by a bus or fall off the roof trying to get a squirrel out of the chimney) to check with SSA to see if she can improve her benefits.
It’s not like I can pick up additional life insurance at this age. (Well, I can, but it’s ridiculously high and usually only covers accidental death…like falling off the roof or being hit by a bus).
That’s a good correction. It’s a common mistake engendered by the SSI initials of Supplemental Security Income and the fact that it is administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA), but SSI is strictly a welfare program paid out of general revenues and not the Social Security Trust Fund. Back in 1972 when it was created they were looking for someone to mail out millions of checks per month and naturally thought of the SSA, because they were already mailing out millions of checks per month.
Different initials might have helped, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that. It’s really too late to change them now.
It also didn’t help that for years ordinary non-disabled SS benefits were sold to the general public as like a government-run personal savings account. The pitch was “You pay in now, you get back out later.” We can’t have any of that evil socialism in our country.
Under the covers it was always a pure pyramid welfare scheme. Good thing too. But the marketing story was 100% good ol’ 'Murrican total self-sufficiency and getting back your own savings with interest. From your social security account. There’s a reason they labeled your individual earnings records an “account”.
A long wait on hold to make an appointment was my experience, too.
It was totally worth it. SSA will take walk-ins and a lot of people apparently don’t know about or bother to make an appointment. I had an appointment, got there maybe five minutes early, checked in on the self-service terminal, and took a seat. Approximately 2 minutes later my number came up on the screen.
There were about 12 people in my immediate vicinity who stared daggers at me. I’m sure they’d already been waiting most of an hour, and it irked them that I got in right away. I think they didn’t understand that I had made an appointment.