Widower Social Security survivor benefits claiming order, Digi Mart USA News: Widowers can sometimes collect one Social Security check while another keeps growing, but claiming them in the wrong order can have lasting consequences. For a man whose wife out-earned him, the right sequence may not be the obvious one.
A reader recently wrote to MarketWatch with a question many widowers face. His high-earning wife died at 60 after more than three decades of marriage.
Now 62, he wants to know whether collecting on her record could allow his own, larger check to keep growing until later.
It can. This is one of the few situations in which Social Security allows two benefits to be used in sequence.
The catch is that the order of claiming matters as much as the age at which a person claims. Claiming in the wrong order could mean giving up hundreds of dollars a month for life.
A surviving spouse can generally begin survivor benefits at age 60, provided the marriage lasted at least nine months and the survivor did not remarry before age 60. Because he is already past 60, remarrying now would not cut off his claim.
Claiming early reduces the check. Survivor payments start at 71.5% of the spouse’s benefit and reach 100% only when the survivor reaches full retirement age.
For most widows and widowers born in 1962 or later, that age is 67. At 62, he would receive roughly 80%.
Consider an illustrative example in which his wife’s full benefit would have been $3,000 a month. This figure is not her actual benefit.
At 62, his survivor check would be about $2,390, and that early reduction would remain with him apart from inflation adjustments. His actual figure depends on her earnings record.
Most retirees cannot collect one benefit while another continues to grow, but widows and widowers often can. He could start with survivor benefits and switch to his own retirement benefit at 70 if that check is larger.
He never collects both in full, and the payments are not added together.
His own benefit grows 8.0% for each year he waits past age 67, and those credits stop at 70. Two simple cases show why the order matters.
In the first, his own full benefit is $2,500 and grows to about $3,100 by age 70. He collects roughly $2,390 in survivor benefits from 62 to 70, then switches to the larger check, receiving something from both records.
In the second case, his own full benefit is $2,000, reaching only $2,480 at 70, which is less than her unreduced $3,000. In that scenario, the order reverses.
He could claim his own retirement benefit at 62, reduced by 30% to about $1,400, then switch to the full $3,000 survivor benefit at 67.
Because his wife was the higher earner, the second case is entirely possible, and he should not assume his own check will be larger. Survivor claiming has its own rules, and the best order depends on which benefit will ultimately pay more.
Survivor benefits do not start automatically. Personal finance host Suze Orman put it plainly on her podcast: “You have to apply for survivor benefits separately.
Do not think that it will automatically happen, because it won’t.”
The mistake that is hardest to undo is claiming the wrong benefit early, because that reduction stays with the check for life. Before filing, he should request estimates from Social Security of his survivor benefit at 62 and 67, along with his own benefit at 62, 67 and 70.
With those figures side by side, the better order is usually clear.
Each widower’s records, health and work plans are different, and details such as an exact birth date or a part-time job can change the outcome. A meeting with Social Security, with both earnings records in hand, is time well spent.
