Spousal, survivor, divorced spouse, WEP/GPO, children
Short answer: You do not lose survivor benefits if you remarry at age 60 or older (or at age 50 or older if you are disabled). Remarrying before those ages ends your eligibility, unless the later marriage ends in death, divorce, or annulment. This counter‑intuitive fact surprises many widows and widowers who believe they must…
The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) can cut your Social Security retirement or disability benefit by up to $587 per month (2024) if you also receive a pension from work not covered by U.S. Social Security — and most foreign pensions count as non-covered. A few foreign pensions are exempt, but assuming yours is automatically exempt…
Quick answer Social Security pays you the higher of your own retirement benefit or the divorced spouse benefit—not both. You cannot combine them or collect one first and switch later if you were born after January 1, 1954 (the deemed filing rule locks you into both at once). If your own benefit based on your…
The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) were repealed on January 5, 2025, when President Biden signed the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82) into law. The repeal is retroactive to January 2024. If you are one of the roughly 2.2 million retirees — teachers, firefighters, police officers, federal employees under the…
If you are self-employed and married, you can receive a spousal benefit of up to 50% of your spouse’s primary insurance amount (PIA) if you wait until your full retirement age (FRA) to claim. However, self-employment income affects both the worker’s PIA (which determines the spousal amount) and your own benefit if you claim before…
Each eligible child of a deceased worker can receive up to 75% of the worker’s primary insurance amount (PIA) — the monthly benefit the worker would have earned at full retirement age. But total benefits paid to a family (including a surviving spouse’s share) cannot exceed a family maximum, typically 150% to 180% of the…
Quick Answer Same‑sex married couples are treated identically to opposite‑sex couples under Social Security law since the 2013 Windsor and 2015 Obergefell rulings. The deemed filing rule (from the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015) applies to anyone born after January 1, 1954: you cannot collect spousal benefits alone while your own retirement benefit grows—filing for one automatically…
If you receive a pension from a government job that wasn’t covered by Social Security, the Government Pension Offset (GPO) reduces your spousal or survivor benefit by exactly two-thirds (2/3) of your monthly non-covered pension. This article walks through the formula step by step with concrete examples so you can estimate your actual benefit –…
The Social Security family maximum caps the total monthly benefits paid to family members on one worker’s earnings record. For self-employed individuals, your net earnings from Schedule SE directly determine your Primary Insurance Amount (PIA), which sets that cap. A spouse can receive up to 50% of your PIA at full retirement age, and a…
If your child has a disability that began before age 22, and you die, your child can receive monthly survivor benefits on your Social Security record. The benefit is up to 75% of your Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) — the same percentage a surviving child gets — though the actual amount may be prorated under…
If your ex-spouse dies before you remarry, you likely qualify for survivor benefits on their Social Security record—even though you’re divorced. The critical rule: you must have been married at least 10 years, you must be at least 60 (or 50 if disabled), and you must be unmarried at the time of your ex’s death….
