Social Security Survivor Benefits: A Complete Guide
Hard part about Social Security is that there are so many different parts or types of benefits to even know about. And we have to know about these things because, understanding them will actually apply to all the different other levels of Social Security, such as survivor benefits or spousal benefits or your own benefits, and it's gonna be impactful for how you make a decision on when you decide to take your benefits or whether or not you're going to delay them. Welcome to Retirement Answers, podcast built to answer your most pressing retirement questions. If you're someone who's either thinking about retirement or already in retirement, well, you're in the right place. Hey there, my name is Jacob Duke, and each week I'll be walking through different tips and strategies to help you succeed in retirement.
Jacob:So let's go ahead and get started with today's show. Hey friends, and welcome back to another episode of Retirement Answers. As always, my name is Jacob Duke, and I'm really glad that you're here. This is a podcast that's built for you, the listener. My goal is to provide insights and ideas around how you can live your best life in retirement.
Jacob:So I'm excited to jump into today's episode because we're talking about Social Security Survivor Benefits. Now, I wanna give you fair warning on the front end. This is going to be a fairly technical episode, but it is meant to be a complete guide to all things that you should know about in regards to Social Security Survivor Benefits. Now, because of that, it might be a little bit longer than normal, but I think this is a topic that is worthy of spending more time on simply because of how many questions I get around survivor benefits every month. Also, I'm gonna mention this towards the end of the episode, but I have a handout that I'd like to give you to help make more sense of all of the Social Security survivor benefit, topics we're going to talk about today.
Jacob:So if you'd like a copy of that, feel free to shoot me an email and I will send that over to you. It will hopefully make things make a little bit more sense to you as you're walking through all of your options for survivor benefits. So the hard part about social security is that there are so many different parts or types of benefits to even know about. You've got your own benefits and the rules that are tied to them. You also have spousal benefits.
Jacob:I've done a previous episode on that before, but the spousal benefits, they have their own sets of rules and things to know about. You also have social security disability, income and benefits there and have different rules for that again. And you also have survivor benefits and the rules that are unique to survivors. So all of these things fall under the Social Security umbrella, but they each have different rules that apply to them and understanding all that can be quite taxing. Also, we have different acronyms like FRAs and PIAs, you know, FRA stands for Full Retirement Age, which can be different for you compared to someone else depending on when you were born.
Jacob:But your FRA is the age at which you are eligible to receive your full benefit. If you take your benefits before your Full Retirement Age, you'll get a reduced amount moving forward, and if you delay it past your full retirement age, you'll get an increased amount greater than whatever your full benefit would have been. When I say full benefit, what I'm really talking about is your PIA, which stands for primary insurance amount. So we have a full retirement age and we have a primary insurance amount. Now there are other acronyms and things to know, but those are the two primary ones we really need to know.
Jacob:And we have to know about these things because understanding them will actually apply to all the different other levels of social security, such as survivor benefits or spousal benefits or your own benefits, and it's gonna be impactful for how you make a decision on when you decide to take your benefits or whether or not you are going to delay them. So today we're talking about survivor benefits, but these are often confused with spousal benefits. They're not the same, and I previously had an episode on spousal benefits, so if you wanna go check that out or listen to that after today's episode, I will have that linked down in the description below so that you can go learn more about spousal benefits, but they're different and understanding the differences will help clarify, hey, what can I get while my spouse is still alive perhaps through a spousal benefit or what can I get after my spouse has passed away through a survivor benefit? So there is a difference there. They're calculated differently.
Jacob:They operate differently, but just note today, we're talking about survivor benefits. So here's our plan for the episode. We're gonna start by explaining survivor benefits just broadly, and then we're gonna get more granular as we go and really dive into some different situations or answer some questions. Now, of these questions that I get often are gonna be, hey, do I get Social Security benefits and Survivor Benefits at the same time? Can I get both of them or is it one or the other?
Jacob:You know, how much will my Survivor Benefit be? When am I eligible to get a Survivor Benefit? Do I have to take my survivor benefits immediately? What happens if my spouse was not receiving their social security benefits before they passed away? Am I entitled to survivor benefits if I'm divorced or if my ex spouse passes away?
Jacob:What happens if I get remarried? Do I still get my benefits or I give those up? And many more other questions like these, but those are some of the primary questions that I get. And I wanna walk through some of those today and really answer that for you. So before we jump into the meat of this episode, I wanted to highlight this week's listen review, and it comes in from lbsdad1288, and he gives the show five stars and says, clear explanation of confusing topics.
Jacob:So glad I stumbled across this podcast. Jacob Duke definitely has the heart of a teacher. He explains the strategies that help take the mystery and uncertainty out of retirement planning. A truly common sense approach to maximizing wealth and minimizing taxes during the golden years. Thank you, Jacob.
Jacob:Well, lbsdad1288, thank you so much for that review. It means a lot to hear that you've been impacted positively by the podcast. And as always, if you're benefiting from this podcast, share it with a friend, but also let me know by giving a written review just as he did. You could do that on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps other people just like you find the show and benefit from it as well.
Jacob:Okay, let's go ahead and jump into survivor benefits. Well, the first question that most people have is what is a survivor benefit? Simply put, it's just a social security benefit that you could be entitled to when your spouse passes away. It's pretty self explanatory. Now, is actually entitled to these survivor benefits?
Jacob:Is it just any survivor of someone who has passed away or are there different requirements to receive these? Well, there are four or five different kind of categories, if you will, of people that can get a benefit. And here are those people. You must be a surviving spouse 60 or older to start receiving benefits. That's the most common category of people, but there are other categories which include being a surviving spouse and you are disabled.
Jacob:So if you are disabled, you can actually start your survivor benefits at 50. So you can start anywhere between 50 and 59, rather than having to wait until 60 if you're disabled and your spouse passes away. Also, any surviving spouse who is caring for a child under 16 can get survivor benefits regardless of their age, until that child is 16. So if you've got a child that is 16 and your spouse passed away, you can get survivor benefits until that child turns 16. Now another category here is a surviving child who is under the age of 18 or 19 if they're still in secondary school, they're entitled to a survivor benefit until they surpass that age of 18 or 19.
Jacob:So if you're a surviving child and you lose a parent and you're under that age, you can also get a survivor benefit. Also, anyone who is divorced, you're gonna follow these same rules that I've already mentioned for these different categories, but there are some nuances here and I'm gonna discuss this towards the end. So if you're divorced and you're curious, hey, can I get survivor benefits based on my ex spouse's earning record once they pass away? The answer is yes, but there are some nuances we're gonna talk through that towards the end. So be sure to listen if that's your situation.
Jacob:So those are the types of people that are entitled to a survivor benefit, but each of those different people, they're gonna receive different amounts. So here's what you need to know based on those categories and what each type of person can receive. So for now, I'm gonna skip over what I'm gonna call the quote normal or most common situation, which I mentioned was the surviving spouse who is over 60. Since that's the most common situation, we're gonna dive into that throughout the rest of this episode. But if you're a surviving spouse who is disabled, which means you can take your benefits starting at 50 or later, you will get 71.5% of your spouse's PIA.
Jacob:Remember PIA stands for primary insurance amount. So if you're a surviving spouse, you're disabled and you decide to take your survivor benefits between fifty and fifty nine, you will get 71.5% of your spouse's PIA. If you're a surviving spouse that's any age caring for a child under 16, you're gonna get 75% of their PIA. And if you are a child that's under 18 or 19, remember if you're still in secondary school, you can get seventy five percent of your parents PIA that passed away. And finally, the percentages of a surviving divorced spouse would be the same as above, but remember there are some nuances there that we will cover towards the end.
Jacob:So those are the percentages or amounts that those less common situations can get as a survivor of someone who has passed away. Now Now let's get into the most common situation that we kind of run into, which is a surviving spouse that is 60 or older. What are they entitled to? They're going to be entitled to 71 and a half percent all the way up to 100% of your spouse's benefits. Now, percentage you actually end up with anywhere in that 71 and a half percent all the way to 100% range is gonna be dependent on four primary things.
Jacob:The first one is your deceased spouse's PIA. The second one is whether or not your deceased spouse had already filed for their retirement benefit. And if so, what age they did so. The third factor is the age at which your spouse passed away. And then finally, the age at which you file for your survivor benefit.
Jacob:So that might all be clear as mud so far. So let me try to simplify this a little bit. Let's first assume that you've reached your full retirement age by the time you file for your survivor benefit. If your spouse had not filed for their benefit by the time that they had passed away, then you've got two options. The first one is, if your spouse died prior to their full retirement age, your benefit as a surviving spouse will be your deceased spouse's PIA.
Jacob:So your benefit would be whatever they would have gotten at their Full Retirement Age. That's if they had not yet filed. Now, the second option here is if your spouse died after reaching their Full Retirement Age, your benefit as a surviving spouse will be whatever they would have been able to receive had they started taking it on the date of their death. Okay, so think of it this way. If they had not filed for their benefits yet, you will get their PIA if they were under full retirement age, or you're gonna get whatever their benefit would have been if they had taken on the date of their death if they were beyond full retirement age.
Jacob:Meaning you get to get the benefit of them delaying it past their full retirement age, but you don't get hurt if they did not make it to full retirement age before passing away. So that's what happens if they had not filed for their benefits before they pass. Now, happens if they had filed for their benefits? If your spouse had filed for their benefits before they died, then your benefit as a surviving spouse will be the greater of the following. The amount your spouse was receiving at the time of their death or 82 and a half percent of your deceased spouse's PIA.
Jacob:So in other words, if your spouse filed so early that they were receiving less than 82 and a half percent of their PIA, you would still get 82 and a half percent of their PIA. So here's maybe an example of that situation. Let's say that they filed at 62 and they passed away at 63. The benefit they were receiving at the time of death would actually be lower than 82 and a half percent of their PIA. So if you are of your full retirement age, when you start taking your benefits, you would get 82 and a half percent of their PIA, not 100% of whatever they're receiving.
Jacob:Does that make sense? You would actually get a greater benefit than what they were receiving because they took it so early. So hopefully you're tracking with me so far. Now, one thing that we need to make clear here is that those are the rules if you are of your full retirement age or older, whenever you start taking your survivor benefits. Now, what happens if you take your survivor benefits before full retirement age?
Jacob:Well, you're gonna receive a reduced benefit. More specifically, if you file as early as possible, meaning age 60, remember that's the earliest age we can get our benefits. If we don't fall into those other less common categories I mentioned, we can start it at 60, but then you would get a survivor benefit that is 71 and a half percent of what you could be getting if you waited until your full retirement age to begin taking those survivor benefits. So every subsequent month after you turn 60, your survivor benefit increases proportionally until you get to full retirement age. So that's going back to the 71.5 percent all the way up to 100%.
Jacob:That's what it's depending on every single month that you wait past 60, that percentage is going up slightly until you get to your full retirement age. And at which point you would then be eligible for 100% of what they were getting. Or remember, we just talked about it, 82 and a half percent of their PIA, if their amount they were getting was less than 82 and a half percent. So hopefully this is making some sense to you, but here's a quick example. If you file for your survivor benefit halfway between 60 and your full retirement age, the amount you're gonna receive is 85.75%, which is halfway between 71 and a half and 100.
Jacob:That's how much you would get of whatever you were entitled to if you took it halfway between. So just know that if you file to begin social security survivor benefits between 60 and your full retirement age, you're gonna anywhere between 71 and a half percent and 99% of the survivor benefit that you are eligible for. So this kind of flies in the face of a common assumption that I hear, and it's that I'm just gonna get a 100% of what are my spouse was receiving. And that might end up being the case, but as I just explained, it could be less than that based on all these different factors. So let's try to make a little more sense of this.
Jacob:Let's walk through an example to really see these rules in action. Let's assume that your spouse died at 70 and they were receiving $3,000 a month. You are age 67, which means you are at your full retirement age or beyond. So in that situation, they were 70 receiving $3,000 a month and you are also of your full retirement age. That means that you are entitled to $3,000 a month, which means you get 100% of what they're receiving.
Jacob:Now let's leave everything the same in this situation, but we're gonna change your age. Let's say that you are 60 currently, and you wanna take your survivor benefits immediately. That means you would get 71 and a half percent of what your spouse was receiving at the time of death. So 71 and a half percent of 3,000 is 2,145. That's how much you would get by taking your survivor benefits at 60 rather than waiting until your full retirement age of 67.
Jacob:So if you take them at 65, you'll get somewhere between 2,100 and 45 and 3,000. I haven't done the math for you on that, but you get the point here. One thing to remember in all of this is that your Social Security survivor benefits also receive COLAs just like any other Social Security benefit. So if you're 60 now and trying to decide, hey, do I wanna take 2,145 every month moving forward, also having cost of investments on that, or do I wanna wait, delay my survivor benefits into the future, take them at my full retirement age. If you delayed it until that point, you wouldn't get 3,000, you'd get 3,000 plus all the COLAs over the next seven years that will be taking place on that 3000.
Jacob:So you get even greater benefit by delaying that a little farther. Now that's one situation. Now here's a different scenario. Let's say that you're 65 currently and your spouse was also 65 whenever they passed away and they were not taking their benefits. You would be entitled to a percentage of their PIA going back to the rule we talked about earlier.
Jacob:If they're not taking their benefits, it just jumps to whatever they would be receiving at their full retirement age. So this means that you're not being penalized for them not taking their benefits. You'd only be penalized if you take your survivor benefits before your full retirement age. So in this situation, you being 65, your spouse just passed away at 65. If you took those benefits immediately, you would get whatever they should have received at 67 or their full retirement age.
Jacob:But since if you take it, but if you take those survivor benefits early, you're gonna get a reduced amount based on that number because you're taking it before 67. So you got a two year gap between 65 and 67. Therefore, you're gonna have a discounted amount that you're gonna be getting. If your spouse was 68 and still not taking their benefits, you would get a reduced amount if you're 65 whenever you take the benefits, but that reduced amount is based on a higher dollar amount because remember at 68, they're gonna be above for retirement age. So you're not basing your benefits on their PIA, you're basing their benefits based on what they would have received had they started taking benefits on the date of their death.
Jacob:So hopefully those different scenarios kind of help you understand how the rules work. Now, maybe through all of this, you've been hearing me say, if you take your survivor benefits before full retirement age. Now that begs the question, can I delay or wait to receive my benefits? And the answer is yes, you can delay your survivor benefits and you do not have to take them immediately. So if you're age 60, when your spouse passes away at 65, your benefits, if you took them at 60 immediately, you would get 71.5% of whatever you were entitled to.
Jacob:Or you could delay that until your full retirement age and get 100% of whatever you were entitled to. So there are a few things that I wanted to mention here around, you know, delaying your benefits and not choosing to take your survivor benefit immediately. If you delay your survivor benefits, that does not mean that you have to delay your own benefits and vice versa. You can actually take your survivor benefits without taking your own. So if you wanted to take a survivor benefit at 60 and then start your own benefit at 67, you can do so.
Jacob:Now this is different from spousal benefits that I've talked about in a previous episode, because there's this thing called deemed filing whenever we're talking about spousal benefits. That just means that in order to qualify for a spousal benefit, you must be taking your own benefits in order to get a spousal benefit. So I don't intend to confuse you here since we are talking about survivor benefits just really quickly. Many people misunderstand spousal benefits and think they're just gonna get 50% of whatever their spouse is receiving, but as we learned in the previous episode that I've done, that is not always the case. You could get anywhere between 32 and a half percent or 50% depending on when you decide to take a spousal benefit.
Jacob:So for survivor benefits though, there is no deemed filing. So how does this work in practice? Let's say that your spouse is taking their benefits when they passed away. They were 68 and you're currently 63. Your own social security benefits at 63 would be 2,500.
Jacob:Your spouse is receiving 3,200 a month whenever they passed away. If you started taking your survivor benefits immediately, you would get a reduced amount because you're gonna taking those survivor benefits before your full retirement age. Now this isn't exact math, but your survivor benefit would be somewhere close to that $2,500 a month mark, which is what you could receive on your own benefits if you took them today. Since your own benefit would be the same amount, it might make sense to delay the survivor benefits into the future and take your own right now. That means that you would get $2,500 a month starting today based on your own benefits, but you can delay those survivor benefits into the future and you can get the full amount that you're entitled to in the future.
Jacob:Now, maybe that isn't what you need to do at all depending on your income situation, but just know that you have some options here with survivor benefits unlike you have with a spousal benefit. So understanding all this is really the important part because whenever you know how these things work, it affects your elections on when you decide to take benefits and how you wanna do that. So by doing it the right way, could increase your lifetime social security benefits by a large amount. So that's what I mean by no deemed filing. You don't have to be taking your own benefit in order to get a survivor benefit.
Jacob:They're not attached in that way. So to answer that question, do you have to take your survivor benefits immediately? No, you do not. You can delay those into the future. There's no benefit to delaying it past your full retirement age, but you can delay it until full retirement age.
Jacob:Another question I often get is can I get my benefits and the survivor benefit on top of that? And the answer is no. You can simply get one or the other, whichever is higher. Now it's actually a little bit more complicated than just saying you're gonna get whichever one's higher, because there's some math that goes into it, but just know that the math works out to where you get the higher of either your benefit or the survivor benefit. You don't get both combined, but you get whichever one is higher.
Jacob:Another important thing to know here is that the earnings income limits that apply to social security benefits, they apply to survivor benefits as well. I'm not going to dive into, you know, the income limits in relation to social security, but just know that if you're still working and earning income, your Social Security benefits will be temporarily reduced if you're earning too much. And the important part to know here is that this applies to all types of Social Security, whether you're taking your own, whether you're receiving a spousal benefit, whether you're getting a survivor benefit or anything like that. So whenever you're trying to figure out how to take or when to elect to start taking your benefits, it's important to pay attention to the earnings limit and whether or not you are still working. So if you're still working, it most likely does not make sense to begin taking those survivor benefits yet.
Jacob:So just wanted to make that clear really quickly because I had a question after the spousal benefit episode with someone that, you know, checked on that and said, well, I can't actually start getting my spousal benefits or I get a reduced amount because I'm still earning too much money. And so that brought the question was, I didn't know there was an earnings limit. Well, the earnings limit that is in regards to social security is it applies to all Social Security benefits regardless of which type of benefit you're receiving. So hopefully that makes sense that if you're still earning a ton of money and you're still working, you probably don't wanna take your benefits in the first place. You probably don't wanna start doing a spouse benefit nor do you wanna do a survivor benefit if you can delay it.
Jacob:Now, finally, as I mentioned before, let's talk about divorcees and ex spouses. If you're divorced and you're not remarried, you will simply follow all of the rules as if you were married when your ex spouse had passed away. So it's almost as if you had been married the whole time. All the rules that we talked about today, your survivor benefits are based on those rules. That's if you are not remarried.
Jacob:Now, if you're divorced and you are remarried, your age at the time of your remarriage becomes important. So if you remarried before age 60, you will not get the claim survivor benefits based on your ex spouse. All benefits will be based on your current spouse. If you remarried after age 60, you are still eligible to receive survivor benefits based on your ex spouse. So age 60 is an important age in regards to all things survivor benefits, whether that be as a someone who was married to the person who passed away or an ex spouse, because if you remarried before 60, your benefits go away.
Jacob:But if you remarried after 60, you get to actually still receive survivor benefits based on your ex spouse. Alright. So how are we doing? Are we tired of hearing about social security and survivor benefits yet? I know that this has been a lot and it gets really confusing really quickly.
Jacob:So I hope that I helped in some way today. I hope this was helpful and made it maybe a little bit easier to understand, or if nothing else, it helps you know that there's more to it than just saying, I'm going take my survivor benefit, or I'm just going to take my own benefit, right? There's, there's a lot that goes into this and making sure that you elect the proper time to take these benefits can make a big impact on how much you get over the rest of your life. So to help make this a little bit easier for you and help you grasp this a little bit better, I've got a visual that I'd like to give you. It's a flow chart and it kind of walks you through, hey, depending on your situation, kind of walks you through what you will or will not be entitled to.
Jacob:So if you'd like a copy of that, shoot me an email and I'll happily send that over to you. My email is down in the description below. So that's enough for one episode. Thanks for tuning in. I really appreciate it.
Jacob:I hope you found it helpful. And other than that, I hope you have a great week this week. We'll talk to you next week. Hey, it's Jacob again, and I wanted to extend a quick offer to you. If you have a question and you would like to have it answered here on the show, please email me at jacobretirementanswers dot net.
Jacob:And I'd love to answer that question for you right here on the show. Also, wanted to remind you that nothing discussed in today's episode is meant to be financial, legal, or tax advice. Retirement Answers is for educational purposes only. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode. I look forward to talking with you again next week.
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