Lifestyle

4/27/2022 | By Catherine Siskos

In this look at how remarriage shapes social security benefits, Catherine Siskos, managing editor at Kiplinger’s Retirement Report, discusses retirement and survivor benefit scenarios.

Question:

My companion started collecting reduced Social Security survivor benefits at age 60, shortly after her husband died. She is now 80 years old. If she remarries, can she claim 50% of her new husband’s benefit if the second marriage lasts at least one year, and could she collect 100% of his benefit if he dies before she does? Or would both of those benefits be reduced because she took the survivor benefit from her first marriage early?

Answer:

happy older couple Photo by Ganna Martysheva Dreamstime. In this look at how remarriage shapes social security benefits, Catherine Siskos, managing editor at Kiplinger’s Retirement Report, discusses retirement and survivor benefit scenarios.

If your companion remarries, neither the spousal nor the survivor benefit based on the new husband’s work record will be reduced, says Kurt Czarnowski, who counsels clients about Social Security at Czarnowski Consulting in Norfolk, Massachusetts. Social Security used to reduce benefits from a second marriage for those who claimed survivor benefits between age 60 and 62. But anyone born after Jan. 1, 1928, is eligible for the full benefit from the new spouse’s record if it’s taken at full retirement age or later, even if a survivor benefit from a prior marriage was claimed early.

And there’s more good news. “The one-year duration of marriage requirement is waived if one month prior to the marriage the person is collecting Social Security,” Czarnowski says. So, when your companion remarries, “she becomes immediately eligible for 50% of her new husband’s benefit,” assuming the amount is higher, and he is already collecting benefits. If her new husband dies after she remarries, she can claim a full survivor benefit from her second marriage or reclaim the one from her first marriage if it’s higher. A survivor benefit can be from either a first or second marriage, but you can’t take both at the same time.

Related to how remarriage shapes Social Security: How the rising cost of living will affect Social Security

© 2022 The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Catherine Siskos

Catherine Siskos is managing editor at Kiplinger’s Retirement Report. For more on this and similar money topics, visit Kiplinger.com.