my ex wife filed for her early retirement on dec 5 2019,she turns 62 in feb 2020 she also filed on my ss retiremnt which is 2310 per mo for my full retirement at age 66. iI am now 76 ,we were married 11 years ,she has not remarried.The social security office determined an early retirement amount of 673 on her work record and an amount of 769 on my record. The office person said she would get a combined sum of 673 + 769 for a total of 1442 per month ibeleive this is incorrect, using your formulas I calculate closer to 815 per mo. Which number do you calculate closer to the correct value? In aaddition she did receive an award letter from ss on her account for 673 by dec 15 2019 but no word yet( 90 days have transpired since filing, does she get a second award letter from my account ? why would it take this long to resolve this matter? All the pertinant datat was presented to ss office when filing marrige cetificate,divorce dates. thank you Larry

Hi,

If $2310 is your primary insurance amount (PIA) and your ex-wife's PIA is less than half of that amount then I would agree that your calculation should be close to what your ex could expect to be paid at age 62. The exact amount would depend on the amount of her PIA, though, so I can't give you a precise figure. A person's PIA is equal to their Social Security retirement benefit if they start drawing at full retirement age.

When a person files for more than one type of benefit at the same time (e.g. retirement benefits & divorced spouse benefits), frequently only the first claim can be processed by the local office through their computer system. The other claim must be transferred to one of Social Security's payment centers, and an employee there must act to process that claim. Obviously, that delays processing of the second claim. I assume that's what occurred with your ex-wife's claims.

Best, Jerry