Hi Larry, I retired last year at 64 after working 28 years and am collecting a CalPers pension. I paid into Social Security and Medicare during those years as well as many other years in other jobs. I turned 65 this August and two months before I contacted Social Security to enroll in Medicare. I told the representative that I had been widowed at age 33 and had never remarried. My husband had passed away at age 41 in 1988. I asked about widow benefits and was told I am eligible to collect $1186 immediately and thereafter $1042 monthly since my Medicare payment would be deducted from the larger amount. I am eligible for my own retirement benefits based on my years of employment and at age 70 could receive $3000 or more per month based on my previous annual Social Security statements. I feel extremely lucky to be collecting the widow’s benefit before I am ready to take my own retirement benefits. However, after all was said and done, I became concerned that maybe I had missed something about switching from widow benefits to my own retirement benefits down the road. I called Social Security two more times and each time the responses were somewhat different when I asked if this was indeed the case. Then I scoured the internet and came across your articles about how Social Security is shortchanging widows. My question since I can’t seem to get a consistent answer when calling is that I am indeed able to switch to my own retirement benefit at any time up until age 70. Can you confirm this? I would love to go down and speak with someone at Social Security offices but since the Covid crisis no offices are open so I can’t get a face to face with the answer I am seeking. I certainly don’t want to receive the lower widow benefit and find out later I can’t change over to my own personal retirement benefits. Thank you.

Hi,

As long as you filed only for widow's benefits, then you'd be free to file separately for your own Social Security retirement benefits at any time. And, if you wait until age 70 to claim your own benefits then your Social Security retirement benefit rate will continue to increase until then due to delayed retirement credits (DRC).

I can't give you any guarantees, but it sounds like you must have only applied for widow's benefits. If you had mistakenly also applied for your own benefits then Social Security should be paying you your own higher reduced benefit rate now.

One item of possible concern, though, is the fact that mention that you're drawing a CalPers pension. As long as all of your earnings on which the CalPers pension is based were subject to Social Security taxes, though, then there's no problem. The only type of pension that would cause your widow's benefits to be offset would be a government pension based on your work and earnings that were exempt from Social Security taxes. That's because of the Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10007.pdf).

Best, Jerry