Question: My husband passed away in 2009 at age 81. I am 54 now. When can I collect his benefits?
Answer: Very sorry for your loss. You need to be at least age 60 to collect widow’s benefits unless you have children who are under age 16 or who are disabled. In this case, you can receive mother’s benefits. Taking your survivor (widow’s) benefit early, (before full retirement) may not be the best move since the benefit will be permanently reduced. Indeed, an age 60 widow taking widow’s benefits this year would experience a 28.5 percent reduction in her benefit relative to waiting until 66 — her age of full retirement. Moreover, if your husband took his own retirement benefit before full retirement age, your widow’s benefit, before it’s hit by any potential reduction factor, may be less than his full retirement benefit.
To collect a widow’s benefit, you can’t be married unless you got married after age 60. One can, however, be married and divorced and then become eligible again to collect a widow’s benefit based on the previous spouse’s work record.
You’ll want to run yourself through a commercially available software program to see when to take your own retirement benefit and when to take your widow’s benefit. You won’t want to take both at once since one will wipe out the other; you’ll get the larger of the two. As explained in this column, the trick to maximizing your Social Security benefit is to take one benefit (either your widow’s benefit or your retirement benefit) first, while letting the other benefit grow.
By waiting to take your widow’s benefit, you are avoiding the widow’s benefit reduction factor (which hits you for taking it before full retirement age), effectively letting the benefit grow. You can let your retirement benefit grow by avoiding the early retirement benefit reduction factor and utilizing the delayed retirement credit (the benefit increase for those who postpone taking their retirement benefit between full retirement age and age 70).
Finally, if you were disabled when your husband passed away or became disabled within seven years of his death, you can collect disabled widow’s benefits starting immediately. (Incidentally, such benefits are available starting at age 50.) And if you are entitled to a disabled widow’s benefit, don’t worry about getting remarried. It would affect these benefits even if the remarriage occurred before age 60.
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