What Happens to Your Social Security if Your Spouse Dies?
Written by Christy Bieber for The Motley Fool -> The death of a spouse can be a major financial shock. One issue is that your household Social Security income usually declines. You may be entitled to a higher Social Security benefit of your own upon the death of your spouse.
One issue is that your household Social Security income usually declines.
You may be entitled to a higher Social Security benefit of your own upon the death of your spouse.
When your spouse dies, you face many major lifestyle changes -- and some of those changes are likely financial.
If you're retired, the change could be a major one if you and your spouse were both collecting Social Security checks, but now your husband or wife has passed on.
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When your spouse dies, your Social Security benefit may stay the same if you were the higher earner in your household. However, if you earned less than your spouse did, you may want to change to survivor benefits instead.
Survivor benefits become available as early as age 60 (or younger, if you're disabled or caring for the child of your deceased spouse). These could be worth up to 100% of the benefit your deceased spouse was collecting, if they had claimed benefits before death. If your spouse was not yet collecting benefits, you could be entitled to up to the full amount of their standard benefit plus any delayed retirement credits they earned.
If you were collecting spousal benefits, then those will typically switch to survivor benefits upon the death of your spouse. This will most likely increase the amount you're personally collecting from Social Security.
