My wife worked all her life and got diagnosed with cancer. She stopped working and got social security disability. I worked my whole life and make substantially more. Her payment was low and she gets like 300 for each kid. 2 kids. Someone told me she should’ve gotten my amount of social security I would get which would be more

Hi,

Even though your wife was disabled, she would need to have been at least age 62 to potentially be eligible for spousal benefits. Also, you would have to be drawing your benefits in order for your wife to potentially collect benefits from your Social Security record.

The only way that your wife could have qualified for benefits on your account before age 62 is if you were drawing your benefits and if she had a child in her care who was eligible for benefits on your record and who was either under age 16 or disabled. Also, if a person files for both their own benefits and spousal benefits they can only be paid essentially the higher of the 2 benefit rates, not both.

Best, Jerry