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How Can I Dispute What Social Security Told Me?

I am 65 year old man on disability with age 65 wife. I earned over twice what she did during career. I want to delay taking my retirement benefit @ FRA so it can grow through age 70. called local field office to discuss my situation before submitting application this December.. Was told I'm ineligible for delay option because my disability amount was already set @ maximum amount. Sounds incorrect based on your previous answers. How to dispute it?

Hi,

What you were told is not correct. You can voluntarily suspend your retirement benefits as early as the month that they convert from disability benefits (SSDI) to retirement benefits. That will occur in the month of your 66th birthday, unless you were born on the first day of a month in which case they would convert a month earlier. You must request suspension no later than the month prior to the month that you want the suspension to begin. So if, for example, you turn age 66 on December 2nd of this year you would need to request suspension no later than November in order to suspend your benefits effective with December.

Voluntary suspension requests are not required to be submitted in writing, but I would suggest that you do so on a form SSA-795 ( https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-795.pdf). If you get any pushback from Social Security you might want to refer them to the 3rd example in the following section of their operations manual: https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0202409110. And, if they formally disallow your request you can file an appeal.

By the way, you may want to consider using our maximization software to see what effect delayed retirement credits would have on your benefit rate, and to explore and compare your wife's filing options.

Best, Jerry

Posted: 
Jun 24 2018 - 11:08am
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