I started taking my SS at age 70- two years ago. My wife will begin taking hers at age 70 this month. In December we discovered she was eligible to receive spousal benefits of 50% of my benefit at predicted age 66 retirement. We contacted SS and they retro actively gave her 6 months of spousal benefits- but said they couldn’t give her spousal benefits between the time I started taking SS at age 70 (Feb. 2021) and May 2022- ~ 13 months. Is there anything we can do to receive those approximately 13 months of spousal benefits that were denied?

Thank you

John

Hi John. If you listed your wife on your application when you applied for benefits, then that would have established a protective filing date for your wife. Assuming that you did list your spouse on your application and unless Social Security closed out that protective filing date by sending your spouse a 6-month closeout letter, then your wife should be allowed to use your filing date as her filing date for spousal benefits. That would allow her spousal benefits to start effective with your first month of benefit entitlement.

You could attempt to hash this out with Social Security informally, but if your wife is still within the 60 day appeals period then the more effective course of action would likely be for her to file a formal appeal request (https://www.ssa.gov/apply/appeal-decision-we-made/request-reconsideration). On your wife's request for appeal she'll want to call Social Security's attention to section GN 00204.010C.1 of Social Security's operations manual (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0200204010#c).

Best, Jerry