Hi Larry!
Thank you for what you do.

I am 62. My husband (and sadly, also my CPA) died at age 41. I am still working and earn about 70k a year. My company puts all 401K contributions in before tax, leaving my my wages in box 1 (60198.58). Box DD: (9365.52). I had a thought: If I contributed/deferred $51k and reduced my income to 18,900 a year would I be able to draw my widow benefit to make ends meet until I retire at 66 and 10 months? That may be wishful thinking as I am limited to $26K cap on contributions including catch-up. However, I did read that total total employee/employer contribution limit is 64K a year for 2021. My company contributes 100% on first 5% and @5 thereafter I think. I have been ill, but don’t want to go on disability as I really need to have money saved for retirement. is there any hope? Thank you in advance for you help...

Hi. I'm sorry for your loss. The amount of your wages that Social Security would count for earnings test purposes is the amount shown in block 3 (i.e. Social Security wages) of your W-2 form. I don't think that the type of contributions you refer to would reduce the amount of your earnings that are subject to Social Security taxes, but that would depend on the particulars of your individual plan. You may want to discuss your question with someone in your employer's payroll office to find out what effect increasing your 401k contributions would have on the amount of your Social Security wages. By the way, reducing the amount of your Social Security wages could have an adverse effect on the Social Security retirement benefit rate that you could be paid on your own record.

Whether or not you could be paid any Social Security benefits prior to to your full retirement age (FRA) depends on your benefit rate, the the countable amount of your earnings. It sounds like your best strategy for claiming benefits would likely be one of the following:
1) File for reduced widow's benefits now or as soon as your earnings will permit at least some benefits to be paid, then switch to your own record at age 70; or,
2) File for reduced retirement benefits on your own record now or as soon as your earnings will permit at least some benefits to be paid, then file for unreduced widow's benefits at full retirement age (FRA).

Normally, you would want to start out drawing the lower benefit first and then switch to the higher benefit when it reaches it's highest potential rate. Our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) could help sort all of this out for you so that you can determine the best strategy for maximizing your benefits.

Best, Jerry