Breaking up is hard to do but making sure you get all the Social Security benefits you’re entitled to after a divorce should be one of the simpler financial matters you have to deal with.
With fully half of all marriages ending in divorce these days, untangling separating spouses’ retirement benefits has become a routine matter for the Social Security Administration. But what’s routine for a bureaucrat is anything but routine for individuals, especially when they’re caught up in one of the most emotionally wrenching experiences of their lives.
So, if you’re in that situation – or odds are you know someone who will be – here are some basic facts everybody should be aware of.
The first essential number is 10… that is, 10 years. If a marriage lasts at least that long, then a divorced person can receive benefits based on the ex-spouse’s work record. This is nothing less than a lifeline for those spouses, usually wives, who devoted their peak earning years to keeping a home and raising children. The law ensures they won’t be left out in the cold, even if they lack a strong earnings record in their own names.
Now, of course, we come to the “yes, but” part of the matter. Maybe the most important is the re-marriage rule. An ex-spouse who marries again instantly relinquishes any claim on the previous spouse’s Social Security benefits. So, the 10-years-and-out calculation applies only to those who remain single after cutting the knot.
There’s a footnote to this, however. If your benefits come from the account of an ex-spouse who has died and you remarry after turning 60, the money won’t be cut off.
Ex-spouse benefits are ordinarily available only to those 62 and older, the same age that triggers any able-bodied person’s ability to start collecting benefits. And, of course, you can’t get Social Security if the ex-spouse himself isn’t part of the system. For example, some state or municipal employees who are covered by local government pension plans are exempt from Social Security.
One other very important caveat applies – if you would collect more based on your own work history than you’d get from your ex-spouse’s history, then you’re better off on your own. In cases where both are eligible for benefits, the one with the lower lifetime earnings can’t get more through the two pipelines combined than they could get solely from on the higher-earning spouse’s record.
I’ve heard of people hesitating to claim benefits from the ex-spouse’s account for fear this would diminish the former partner’s own retirement. Don’t worry. It won’t. Whatever you draw won’t have any effect on what the ex can collect, not even what the ex’s new spouse might be entitled to.
So, go ahead and apply for benefits if you meet one of these tests:
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