Q & A
How can a divorced wife get benefits on the husband’s record before the current wife?
Full question: have been a stay-at-home mom all my life. I am 63, and my husband is 62. We have been married for 20 years. He doesn’t plan to take his Social Security until he is 66. But I’d like to get my wife’s share of my husband’s benefits now. I contacted Social Security and learned that I can’t get any of his Social Security until he files for benefits. I’m sort of OK with that. But here is the catch. He was married before for more than 10 years to another woman. She never remarried. She is 63. And I just learned that she has filed for and is receiving my husband’s Social Security. How in the world can that be fair?
Answer: This is one of those government rules that sounds ill-thought-out and whacky until you learn the reasoning behind the law. And that law does say a currently married woman can’t get any of her husband’s Social Security until he is getting benefits himself. But a divorced woman can get benefits from her ex as long as he is old enough for Social Security even though he might not yet be a beneficiary himself.
The reasoning behind the law has to do with the issue of dependency. A woman qualifies for a portion of her husband’s Social Security benefits because she is considered to be financially dependent on him. In other words, the law assumes that a woman (who doesn’t have her own job and her own Social Security) was being supported by her husband while he was working — and therefore, should be supported by a portion of his Social Security once he retires. Read more…
Source: Tom Margenau, ArcaMax Publishing – 9/17/2014
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