‘If one spouse outearns the other, spousal benefits are always a good deal.’
Remember that spousal benefits amount to only half of a higher-earning spouse’s Social Security payments. If your work record is nonexistent or not especially impressive, then it would make sense to claim spousal benefits.
There are some conditions. You must be married for at least a year before you can collect spousal benefits, and your spouse must already be receiving Social Security.
If you do have a good work record, your payments will be based on that. Social Security will automatically do a comparison and give you the larger of either your own benefits or spousal benefits.
4 thoughts on “12 Myths About Social Security Finally Debunked”
when i die will my wife collect my ss
I am a 65 year old male that will be eligible for social security in a few months. My wife of 43+ years is drawing teacher retirement after a 35 year career. As we understand it, she will not be eligible for any of my survivor SS benefits or any of her own SS earnings. She has worked many, many hours of SS paying jobs during her college days, summers off and in the 5 or so years since her retirement from teaching. Do we understand this correctly and, if so, is there any course of action we can take to change that?
VJ, Bishop, TX
yOU HAVE ANSWERED SOME QUESTIONS I HAD. THANKS
When my husband recently passed, I was unaware that I could get his social security which was three times the amount than mine. After being told to go after his social security amount instead of mine, I went back to ask for his and now I’m dealing with a very slow system. I’ve been to the social security office three times this week already and still no change in my benefits to collect my husbands benefits.I have been to two different social security offices and nothing is happening. They keep promising the change will take time, but I wonder if will ever happen. What else can I do that I haven’t already done?