{"id":4360,"date":"2006-10-09T11:45:43","date_gmt":"2006-10-09T11:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4360"},"modified":"2025-09-30T02:59:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T02:59:45","slug":"social_security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4360","title":{"rendered":"Social security benefits and your spouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s something of interest to anyone who’s married – since eventually all us married people become either (1) divorced or (2) a widow or widower (unless we die first!). The column is written in a bit of a funny style but has very useful info on social security benefits.<\/p>\n

Parting Gift From a Dead Ex – washingtonpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n

An edited excerpt; if you are interested be sure to read the whole thing:<\/p>\n

\n

When you are get ready to draw Social Security, you have a choice: to draw benefits based on your own earnings, or to draw 50 percent of benefits based your ex’s earnings. That’s assuming you are currently unmarried and old enough yourself to be eligible for full benefits.<\/p>\n

But once your ex dies, you may choose between benefits based on your own eligibility or 100 percent based on your ex’s earnings. …<\/p>\n

I had never heard of this provision until I attended a recent conference on retirement security.<\/p>\n

I read my annual mailing from the SSA more attentively than I once did, but I didn’t remember any reference to this potential benefit. It’s there, but not in a way that jumps out. On the back page of the four-page statement, under "Survivors," it simply notes that "If you are divorced, your ex-spouse could be eligible for widow’s or widower’s benefit on your record when you die."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s something of interest to anyone who’s married – since eventually all us married people become either (1) divorced or (2) a widow or widower (unless we die first!). The column is written in a bit of a funny style but has very useful info on social security benefits. Parting Gift From a Dead Ex […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9567,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4360\/revisions\/9567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}