If you remarry before age 50 – You won't be eligible for survivors or disability benefits as a surviving spouse unless your later marriage ends by divorce or annulment.
If you remarry before you turn 60, your remarriage will affect the benefits you receive. After the age of 60, remarriage will no longer affect eligibility. The SSA compares survivor benefits to a life insurance policy that workers contribute to throughout their careers.
Men remarry more quickly than women. The median interval to remarriage was 1.7 years for men and 3.5 years for women.
If your spouse dies, do you get both Social Security benefits? You cannot claim your deceased spouse's benefits in addition to your own retirement benefits. Social Security only will pay one—survivor or retirement. If you qualify for both survivor and retirement benefits, you will receive whichever amount is higher.
Remarriage at any time makes the widow potentially eligible for spouse benefits on her new husband's work record, so marriage is unlikely to leave a woman ineligible for Social Security.
The widow's penalty occurs when a surviving spouse's tax status reverts from married filing jointly to single. If you're a widow or widower, you can file a joint tax return for the year of your spouse's death.
If you have since remarried, you can't collect benefits on your former spouse's record unless your later marriage ended by annulment, divorce, or death. Also, if you're entitled to benefits on your own record, your benefit amount must be less than you would receive based on your ex-spouse's work.
You will receive your survivor's pension for the rest of your life. Remarrying or entering into a new civil union does not affect your surviving spouse pension. Even though there may be no change in your pension, you do need to advise us of any name or address change to make sure your payments are not interrupted.
Widow's Fire is the phenomenon where widows and widowers can feel an uncontrollable desire for sex following the death of their partner.
Spouses and ex-spouses
Payments start at 71.5% of your spouse's benefit and increase the longer you wait to apply. For example, you might get: Over 75% at age 61.
Have you heard about the Social Security $16,728 yearly bonus? There's really no “bonus” that retirees can collect. The Social Security Administration (SSA) uses a specific formula based on your lifetime earnings to determine your benefit amount.
Answer: Both your current spouse and your ex could be entitled to survivor benefits based on your work record. Typically someone must be married nine months to qualify for survivor benefits on a current spouse's record. If the spouses divorced, the marriage must have lasted 10 years.
The short version: Spousal benefits are available to retired workers' spouses or ex-spouses. They pay up to 50% of a worker's monthly retirement or disability benefit. Survivor benefits are paid to a surviving spouse or surviving ex-spouse when a Social Security beneficiary dies.
The first exception, which can be deemed as the Social Security spousal benefits loophole, works where an individual who remarries at 60 or later may still be entitled to Social Security survivors' benefits if the second marriage ends before the death of the first spouse.
If you are considering remarriage or have remarried already, it is important to create an estate plan or update an existing one to identify your assets, designate beneficiaries and joint owners and also specify how you want your assets to be passed to your spouse and children both natural and step.
Social Security pays benefits to each minor or disabled child and to the worker's widow(er) provided a child of the worker is in his or her care. Although remarriage has no effect on a child's eligibility for benefits, the benefit going directly to the widow(er) terminates if he or she remarries.
Instead of the retired worker's benefit ending when he died, his widow could collect a survivor benefit for her lifetime. Since then, the eligibility rules for survivors have improved. The age requirements are lower, surviving ex-spouses are eligible, including surviving spouses and partners of same-sex relationships.
Getting Married
If you're receiving spousal benefits based on your former spouse's work record, those benefits will generally end upon your getting remarried, but you may be able to receive benefits based on your new spouse's work record, or on your own.
If you become disabled before your full retirement age, you might qualify for Social Security disability benefits. You must have worked and paid Social Security taxes in five of the last 10 years.
The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act 1856, also Act XV, 1856, passed on 16 July 1856, legalised the remarriage of widows in all jurisdictions of India under East India Company rule. The law was enacted on 26 July 1856.
Filing the Year Following the Year of Death
It's called the qualifying widow(er) tax filing status. The qualifying widow status, which provides many of the same tax benefits as the married filing jointly status, is not available to everyone.
A widow(er)'s exemption refers to a reduction of tax burdens on a taxpayer following the death of a spouse. State laws vary but generally allow for a reduction in taxes for a surviving spouse for a certain period.