Social Security Survivor Benefits for a Widow

[AginMS]

A close friend recently lost her husband. They were married 20 years. He was 62, she is 53. He was not drawing social security at the time of his passing (still working full time). She has not worked in 4-5 years, but has worked in the past.

Under the SS survivor benefits, it appears she will not be eligible to claim survivor benefits until she turns 60 (7 years). They have no young children and she is not disabled.

Our question is, when she waits 7 years to claim it, will she be eligible for his SS benefits at age 62, or will she be eligible for the benefits he would have received if he waited to claim at 69?

When she is ready, I will of course advise her to contact the local SS office, but for now I am just trying to help clear up a few of her many concerns and questions.

 

[Sarah S]

https://www.thebalance.com/social-security-survivor-benefits-for-a-spouse-2388918

It is reduced if she claims at 60 unless she becomes disabled within 7 years of his death I think

 

[ivinsfan]

https://www.thebalance.com/social-security-survivor-benefits-for-a-spouse-2388918

It is reduced if she claims at 60 unless she becomes disabled within 7 years of his death I think

Yes.but.....one has to factor that the deceased spouse would have been at least 69 but the time she files and she will get the delayed retirement credit in her benefit. She would be able to claim that discounted amount wait until she herself hits full retirement and let her benefit grow. At that point she can compare the two numbers and take the larger.



As a side note if changes come in this area I don't know if they are based in real time or would be grandfathered in to the spouse's date of death. You are talking either 7 or 17 years which is a long time.

 

[RetiredHappy]

She will only get the full survivor benefits at her full retirement age of 67. If she starts the survivor benefits at 60, it is much discounted.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

The best course of action probably depends on how great her earnings were/are on her own record.

Open Social Security suggests that the best solution is for her to claim on her own record at 62, and switch to the survivor benefit at her age 67. (This was for a case where his PIA was 3x her PIA, which I just took as a wild guess.)

 

[AginMS]

Thanks for your replies.

Out-to-Lunch, I'll ask her to log into her mySocialSecurity account to see where she might be with her own benefits and try putting those numbers into Open Social Security. I don't think her own benefit will be that much so your 3x guess might be pretty close to the mark).

Sarah, thank you for the link.

So claiming at 60 looks like she would only receive about 70% of the benefit compared to 100% if she waits to her FRA. But 70% of what - his benefit at 62 or 69?

ivinsfan - are you pretty sure it would 70% of his benefit at age 69? This is the information I can't seem to find in any article.

 

[statsman]

So claiming at 60 looks like she would only receive about 70% of the benefit compared to 100% if she waits to her FRA. But 70% of what - his benefit at 62 or 69?

That's a question I have wondered about.

 

[nate2953]

At 60 she will be eligible for 71.5% of his FRA benefit. So if you know what his PIA is, you can multiply that by 71.5% and that would be her benefit amount.

 

[ivinsfan]

Read the link posted in this thread

 

[nate2953]

She would only be eligible for the DRC’s off his record if he lived past his FRA without collecting, and died. Then she might be eligible for his DRC’s.

But since he died at 62, he was not eligible for any DRC’s, even though he “would” be 69 when she collects, that’s simply not how it works.

If he died at 69, without yet claiming, she would be eligible for benefits calculated as if he had earned those DRC’s from FRA through the month of death.

But alas, in this case, at 60 she will get 71.5% of his FRA PIA.

-edited to hopefully clarify, that she could be eligible for her own DRC’s based on her own work history, but the idea of getting the benefit of DRC’s as a widow under survivor benefits from the deceased record is wrong in this scenario.

 

[N02L84ER]

It gets confusing when the link posted in this thread has a typo:

"Many people can start to collect a survivor benefit before their reach FRA. It may make sense to start collecting now, then switch to your own retirement benefit at age 70 if it would be larger at that point.6
For example, you could have these two options:

1. At age 60, take a deceased spouse's benefit of $18,180 a year. Then at age 70, switch to your own benefit of $20,304.
2. At age 62, take your own benefit of $10,752 a year. Then at 66, switch to your own benefit of $24,480 a year.

At first glance, taking the money at 60 might seem like a good idea. But choosing option 2 will provide at least $30,000 more income over your life."


Note that option 2 says "your own benefit" twice. I assume the second instance was supposed to say switch to survivor benefit.

 

[nate2953]

Yes, a common scenario is to file a restricted application for widows benefits at 60, then file another application for retirement benefits at a later age(commonly 70 for DRC’s).

Some instances it works out better to do retirement at 62, then switch to widows at a later date (commonly the survivor FRA).

 

[ivinsfan]

Read the link posted in this thread

After Nates post I reread this. It's poorly written but I think he's right that the spouse had to die AFTER their FRA to get age enhanced benefits. SORRT

 

[Dtail]

Does this claiming process have to take place in the Social Security office?

 

[sengsational]

Is there a calculator that can model these kinds of situations for what-if analysis? Seem like these rules could be codified and spit out various results, depending on when SS starts.

 

[cathy63]

Is there a calculator that can model these kinds of situations for what-if analysis? Seem like these rules could be codified and spit out various results, depending on when SS starts.

Yes. https://opensocialsecurity.com/ lets you select a marital status of "Widow(er)" and will recommend when to claim your own and your survivor benefits.

 

[skyking1]

Thanks Nate, it is clear the way you laid it out.

 

[GravitySucks]

Does this claiming process have to take place in the Social Security office?

It did not for me.
Though I eventually did go to the SS office as I wanted resolve a lost document issue in person.

 

[sengsational]

Yes. https://opensocialsecurity.com/ lets you select a marital status of "Widow(er)" and will recommend when to claim your own and your survivor benefits.

Thanks. That's helpful. I would have been better if it allowed me to kill myself off after 12/2022, though . But it's clear that for a lower income spouse that's already collecting SS while the higher income spouse is waiting for age 70, if the waiting spouse doesn't make it to age 70, the spouse should take the survivor benefit at FRA or right at death, since the survivor benefit doesn't grow after that, even if the waiting spouse would have been less than 70.

 

[Dtail]

It did not for me.
Though I eventually did go to the SS office as I wanted resolve a lost document issue in person.

So did you send in the required documents and how long did the process take before they switched over to the other SS pymt?