Social Security Retirement Benefits

and Your Marriage

Both the husband and wife will get Social Security Retirement Benefits in their retirement years, even if only one has qualified for Social Security.

If both qualify for benefits, they draw their own benefits. If one spouse (usually the wife as she's worked less years after staying home with the kids) has a benefit less than half of the other benefit, they get a slightly increased benefit.

Even if the non-working spouse has not qualified for Social Security payments, they will still get a payment based on a percentage of the working spouses payment. Everyone gets an "old age" Social Security payments. The spouses benefit does not affect the workers benefit.. there is no reduction just because a spouse will also draw a benefit from the same worker.

Social Security and Divorce

Ex-spouses can draw a benefit from their former spouse (if they were married at least ten years), and this benefit does not affect the ex-spouses benefit. There is no reduction to the person who actually earned the benefit.

Early Retirement of the Main Wage Earner

More than 40% of women depend on Social Security for their income... many more women depend on only Social Security - and it hurts them to live on this income. If the man was the main wage earner (as is the case in most households), and he dies first, her lifetime income is the reduced early-retirement benefit.

More on Social Security Retirement Benefits here!