I bet that in the past 27 years, I have written hundreds of columns explaining spousal and widow benefits that are available to women on a husband’s Social Security account. And usually, if I have enough space, I try to squeeze in a line that says the same benefits are available to husbands and widowers, even though I know those benefits to men are rarely paid.
Why is that so? Because a woman’s Social Security benefit is almost always smaller than her husband’s benefit. And that happens for numerous reasons, but mostly because women tend to take time out of the paid labor force (and thus time away from paying Social Security taxes) to raise children. So a woman is much more likely to qualify for extra benefits off of a husband’s Social Security record.
And the obvious reason women qualify for widow benefits more often than men get widower benefits is that most wives outlive their husbands.
And the numbers back this up. There are almost 2 million women who get spousal benefits from a husband’s account. But there are only 140,000 men who get benefits as a dependent husband on his wife’s Social Security record. Similarly, there are about 3.6 million widows getting survivor benefits but only about 170,000 widowers getting them.
But maybe times are slowly changing. In more than a few married households today, the wife is making more money than the husband, meaning she could end up with higher Social Security benefits than her husband. And maybe men are starting to take better care of themselves physically and thus living as long as, if not longer than, their wives. Why am I saying this? Because I’ve been getting more and more emails from men asking me about spousal and widower benefits. Here are some examples.
In the answer to the prior question, I told the husband who was due two benefits (his own and something off his wife’s record) that he could not file for one benefit and wait until a later date to file for the other one. That is because of Social Security’s “deemed filing” rule that essentially says when you file for one Social Security benefit, you are deemed to be filing for any and all other benefits you are due at the same time.
But that deemed filing rule goes out the window for widows and widowers. And so you have options. For example, you could file for widower benefits now and, at your full retirement age, switch to 100 percent of your own benefit. Or you could wait until age 70 to make the switch and end up with about 130 percent of your retirement benefit.
And to help other widowers (and widows) with slightly different circumstances understand the rules, let me give some other examples of how this widow(er)’s option might be used. Let’s say 62-year-old Jerry’s full retirement-age Social Security benefit was $2,200 per month. And let’s say the FRA benefit of his wife, Carole, was $2,500 per month. And Carole died. Here are some options for Jerry to consider:
He could file for reduced widower benefits now and get about 80 percent of her full retirement rate, or $2,000. Then, at his full retirement age, he could switch to 100 percent of his FRA rate, or $2,200. Or he could wait until 70 and get an augmented benefit of about $2,860 per month.
Another option would be for Jerry to file for reduced retirement benefits first. He'd get 75 percent of $2,200, or $1,650 per month. And then, at his full retirement age, he could switch to 100 percent widower benefits, or $2,500 per month. (There are no augmented widow(er) benefits after FRA, so there would be no point in waiting until 70 to switch to widower benefits.)
