{"id":44554,"date":"2019-09-04T13:21:56","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T17:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=44554"},"modified":"2019-09-04T13:23:21","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T17:23:21","slug":"ask-rusty-confused-about-survivor-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2019\/09\/ask-rusty-confused-about-survivor-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask Rusty \u2013 Confused About Survivor Benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dear Rusty:<\/strong> My husband passed away in 2013 just\na few days short of his 63rd birthday. I was 56 at the time and when I went\ninto the Social Security office to notify them of his death I was told I would\nbe able to get a partial draw when I turned 60. Two years after that I was told\nthat I would never draw anything from his account as the rules had been\nchanged, and since he had never drawn Social Security that his benefits were\neliminated. I am 62 and intend to keep working but any information you have\nmight be helpful. Signed: Confused Survivor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Confused Survivor:<\/strong> You’ve certainly been\ngiven some conflicting information, so I\u2019ll try to clarify. If your husband had\naccumulated enough quarter credits to be eligible for Social Security, you are\neligible for a survivor benefit even if your husband was not yet collecting\nSocial Security (SS) benefits when he passed. To be eligible for SS, your\nhusband would have needed to work for about 10 years for an employer which\nparticipated in Social Security program (meaning, both your husband and his\nemployer paid SS FICA payroll taxes on his earnings). Most U.S. employers\nparticipate in the Social Security program. However, if your husband worked his\nentire career as an employee of a state or local government which does not\nparticipate in SS, or if he worked for the Federal government under their\n\u201cCSRS\u201d program, or if he worked for any other entity which didn’t participate\nin Social Security, he may not have had enough SS credits to be eligible. But\nif he contributed to Social Security for at least 10 years and had at least 40\ncredits (can earn 4 per year) then he would have been eligible for SS, and you\nwould be eligible for a survivor benefit from his record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rules haven’t changed for any of this. If your husband\nwas at least eligible for SS (not necessarily collecting), you became eligible\nfor a survivor benefit at age 60 although it would have been reduced by about\n28.5% from what you would get at your full retirement age (FRA). You are still\neligible for the survivor benefit but, if you take it now at age 62, it will\nstill be reduced for claiming before your FRA, and since you are still working\nyou’ll also be subject to Social Security’s earnings limit ($17,640 for 2019).\nIf you exceed the earnings limit, SS will withhold from future benefits $1 for\nevery $2 you are over the limit, which would mean you wouldn’t get benefits for\nsome months until they recover what is due. If your current earnings are high,\nit may not be prudent to claim early SS benefits even if you’re entitled to\nthem. The earnings limit changes annually, is considerably higher (by 2.5\ntimes) in the year you reach your FRA and goes away once your reach your full\nretirement age. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For your awareness, the survivor benefit reaches the maximum\namount when you reach your full retirement age (but is reduced if you claim it\nearlier). You have the option to restrict your claim to survivor benefits only,\nand you may want to do this if your own SS benefit from your lifetime earnings\nrecord will be more at age 70 than your survivor benefit will be at your FRA.\nYour goal should be to collect the highest benefit possible for the rest of\nyour life. If you so choose, you can collect your survivor benefit first and\ndelay your own SS benefit past your full retirement age, which would allow you\nto earn delayed retirement credits on your own benefit. That will increase it\nby 8% per year of delay, up to age 70 when your maximum Social Security\nretirement benefit will be reached, and at that time you would switch to the\nhigher benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is intended for\ninformation purposes only and does not represent legal or financial guidance.\nIt presents the opinions and interpretations of the AMAC Foundation\u2019s staff,\ntrained and accredited by the National Social Security Association (NSSA). NSSA\nand the AMAC Foundation and its staff are not affiliated with or endorsed by\nthe Social Security Administration or any other governmental entity. To submit\na question, visit our <\/em>website<\/em><\/a> or <\/em>email<\/em><\/a> us.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Rusty: My husband passed away in 2013 just a few days short of his 63rd birthday. I was 56 at the time and when I went into the Social Security… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":44555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}