Money/Finance - Social Security Overview
Basics
Spouse Benefits
Divorced Spouse Benefits (Ex-Spouse Living)
Remarriage After a Spouse's Death (No Divorce)
Divorced Spouse Benefits (Ex-Spouse Deceased)
Basics
Social Security is the federal income benefit program created by the Social Security Act of 1935. It is operated by the Social Security Administration (SSA), which became an independent agency on March 31, 1995. The Social Security Administration operates both the Social Security benefit program and the Supplemental Security Income program. Benefits paid under Social Security are referred to as SSA benefits, while benefits paid under Supplemental Security Income are referred to as SSI benefits. SSI benefits are covered in the following chapter.
Under Social Security, program benefits are paid to workers or their dependents and survivors (spouse and children). Benefits are available when the worker reaches old age (at least 62) or becomes disabled. Survivors’ benefits are paid on the worker's death. If you are entitled to more than one type of SSA benefit, your check will be for the amount of the highest benefit -- you cannot collect both.
Not every worker or dependent is eligible for SSA benefits. To be eligible the worker usually must contribute to the Social Security fund for 40 quarters (of the calendar year). Contributions are made by paying FICA taxes, out of wages or self-employment earnings. Not everyone has to pay this tax on income. Federal workers hired before 1984 and Railroad employees are not included in SSA because they pay into their own federal retirement systems. Ministers and other religious workers can also be exempt. While not necessarily allowed to be exempt, farm workers and domestic workers traditionally have slipped through the FICA tax collection net, and then on retirement, do not have enough quarters of coverage on record with SSA to be eligible for Social Security benefits.
Workers who are disabled or die before retirement age have a different formula for eligibility. To be eligible the worker needed to contribute to FICA for at least six quarters of the 13 before his or her death, or needed 20 quarters out of the 40 calendar quarters ending with the quarter when the disability started. Different rules apply for people disabled at a young enough age that they couldn’t have 10 years in their work life.
The amount of your SSA check depends on the amount you contributed to FICA during your working years. The more you earned and the more you contributed, the bigger your SSA check is on retirement.
Retirees can begin to collect SSA retirement as early as age 62. The amount of your monthly benefit is permanently reduced by 5/9 of 1% for each month that you receive SSA benefits before your full retirement age. The full retirement age is gradually being increased from age 65 to age 67 (effective 2022). For those reaching age 62 in 2007, the full retirement age is 66.
A Surviving Spouse may begin collecting on the deceased worker's contributions at age 50 if she is disabled, or at age 60 if she is not disabled. Disabled children can collect on a deceased or disabled worker's contribution to SSA until age 18, unless the child is also disabled. A child who is disabled before age 22 is eligible to collect from his/her parents' SSA work record until the disability ends.
Disability, for Social Security purposes, means that you have a physical or mental impairment that not only keeps you from your current job, but also incapacitates you from any "substantial gainful activity in the national economy." Further, this impairment or combination of impairments must be expected to last for the foreseeable future (at least twelve months).
Spouse Benefits
If your husband is receiving SSA retirement benefits, your spouse benefit is ½ of his Primary Insurance Amount (the amount he would receive if he retired at full retirement age). You must be age 62 to receive a spouse benefit but it will be reduced, as discussed above, if you retire before your full retirement age. If you are also entitled to a SSA benefit on your own work record you will receive the higher benefit, not both.
Divorced Spouse Benefits (Ex-Spouse Living)
If your marriage lasted at least 10 years before divorce, you are entitled to divorced spouse benefits on your ex-husband's work record. The most you would be able to collect is ½ of his Primary Insurance Amount (PIA). Usually this is his SSA benefit, but not always. It depends on how many others are also dependents on the same work record. If the benefit you will receive on your own work record is more that ½ of his, you would only receive SSA on your own work record because that is the higher amount.
You can start to collect SSA as a divorced spouse at age 62, so long as your ex-husband is already collecting on his SSA benefits when you divorce. If your ex-husband has not started collecting SSA benefits, you can collect once you meet the age requirements and have been divorced for two years.
If you are collecting SSA benefits as a "divorced spouse," your benefits usually end if you remarry. Exceptions to this general rule are made if you marry a person entitled to SSA benefits as a widower, parent or disabled child, or you marry someone who is also receiving divorced spouse benefits. Should your benefits stop because of a new marriage, they can be restarted if the new marriage ends.
Remarriage After a Spouse's Death (No Divorce)
As a surviving spouse you are entitled to 100% of your husband's SSA benefit. You do not need to be married for 10 years to be eligible as a surviving spouse; instead the marriage needed to be at least a year in length (with some exceptions). If you remarry before you turn age 60, you usually are not eligible for continuing to collect SSA benefits on your deceased husband's record. Again, exceptions are made if you marry a person receiving widower, parent or disabled child SSA benefits. If you remarry after age 60, the remarriage will not affect your eligibility to survivor spouse benefits. If you are receiving SSA benefits as a disabled surviving spouse and you remarry after age 50, you also will not lose eligibility to those benefits.
Divorced Spouse Benefits (Ex-Spouse Deceased)
If, after you divorce, your ex-husband dies, the SSA rules on collecting from his work record vary from what is stated above.
Again, to be eligible you must have been married for at least 10 continuous years, and not be eligible for more benefits on your own work record than on his. As a surviving divorced spouse you are entitled to 100% of his SSA benefits. Benefits begin at age 60 (age 50 if you are disabled).
If you remarry after age 60, your eligibility to this benefit is not affected. If you remarry before age 60, you lose eligibility during the new marriage, unless your new spouse is eligible for SSA benefits as a widower, parent or disabled adult child. If you are under age 60 and receiving benefits as a disabled surviving divorced spouse, remarriage after age 50 does not affect your benefit eligibility.
SSA offices are able to calculate all the possible benefits you may be eligible to receive and explain what happens to each if you remarry.
