Widow(er) Benefits

Hi,

I am currently 64 years old (born July 1955). My wife passed away in April 2018 at the age of 54. I am not currently working but I will have some earned income this year. I also plan to delay my benefits until I am 70.

I understand that if I start taking my wife's benefit today, I will get a percentage of her social security benefit, but if I wait until I am 66, I will get 100% of her benefit.

I'm currently 62, my wife died eight years ago and she was collecting SSDI. Is there anything I can collect off of her SSDI now that I'm 62. I continue to work full time and have no plans of retiring before my full SS benefits at 66 and 6 months but was curious if I was missing out on anything?

Hi,

I'm sorry for your loss.

Hey Larry,
I am 69 now. Because I have a small pension, I have been collecting Social Security since age 62. My wife, now 67, retired and started collecting the "restricted benefit" at age 66. Assuming all goes as planned, she will increase her monthly payment by almost $500 when she finally starts collecting from her own account at age 70.

I am a 56 year old male, just trying to plan for my retirement. my wife of 8 years passed away in 2012. I have heard rumors that I can apply for her benefits at age 60. she had minor children that drew her ssn. they are now adults. can I still receive her benefits? thank you for your input.

Hi,

I'm sorry for your loss.

Larry, my wife, born in 1951, is now age 67. A year ago or so, she started her social security benefit based on her own earnings record at her Full Retirement Age 66. I was born in 1949. A couple of years ago, I filed and suspended my benefit in March 2016 (prior to April 29, 2016) at my age 67 and have been letting my credits increase. I am now 69+ and planning on delaying a few more months until I am age 70 in 2019 to start my benefit. Assuming I die after having started to receive my age 70 benefit, what amount will my wife get as a widow benefit?

I am 72 and my husband is 78 we both draw social security now. Will it be affected? If something happens to one of us can the other one draw part of their social security? We make almost the same in Soc Sec so we would only get our own?

Hi,

Question regarding survivor's/widow's benefit. Page 62 of "Get What's Yours" states "If they died after FRA, your survivor's benefit is the actual benefit, inclusive of Delayed Retirement Credits..." My wife and I are the same age, 65 (born 1952) and she filed on her social security at 62. I just filed for spousal benefits on her record when I turn 66 in Dec 2018 and plan to hold off of filing on my record till 70.

My father has recently passed away, my mother and father have been together since 1989 but have never "officially" married but lived as husband and wife my dad collected social security benefits and my mom collected SSI. WE would like to apply for "spousal benefits" for her to help her continue to pay her bills what would I need to have to prove that they have been together all this time?
Thank you

Hi,

I'm sorry for your loss.

Hope you can help. I'm 63.5 years old, plan to wait until 70 before claiming my own SS benefit (>$3k/mo at that age). My 1st wife of 35 years died 3 years ago at age 63. I re-married, and fill all the criteria for SS survivor bene's from my 1st wife (about $1k p/mo). I'm also self employed and not certain what my income for the next 3 years (until FRA) will be. Likely it will be somewhat above the $17,040 earnings test, perhaps even enough to wipe out the full survivor bene (> $ 44k/year) if I apply now.

Jerry,

Thank you for your prompt email reply to my inquiry. Since your email does not allow for a direct reply I’m sending a few additional thoughts via the contact page. While these thoughts deal with semantics, I’m seeking clarification in order to feel comfortable that I’m not misunderstanding things. Please bear with me.

#1) In your Dec. 30, 2017 answer you wrote “The resulting survivor benefit of $1890 would be paid in addition to her own retirement benefit, making her combined benefit amount equal to her ex’s full rate of $2640.”