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Are You Losing Your Social Security
Benefits?
By Ginita
Wall, CPA, CFP
 I recently heard that I may be
entitled to collect Social Security benefits when I retire based on my ex-husband's
earnings. But I looked at my divorce decree and it doesn't say anything about it. Did I
miss the boat?
 Here's some good news about your divorce! If you were
married to your ex-spouse for ten years before your divorce became final, you are entitled
to Social Security benefits based on his earnings by operation of federal law.
That means it doesn't have to be addressed in
your divorce papers to be effective.
You may apply to the Social Security
Administration for benefits on your ex's earnings record if you are at least 62 and aren't
remarried.
Those benefits are called "derivative
benefits," and they equal one-half of your ex-husband's benefits.
He may threaten to keep working and thwart
your ability to claim benefits against his record, but his threats are empty. It isn't
necessary for him to have retired for you to begin collecting.
Unlike other pensions, the social security
benefits you receive will be based on his entire earnings record, not just his earnings
during the time you were married.
The Social Security benefits you receive
won't reduce the amount he receives. If he's remarried, it won't reduce what his current
wife is entitled to receive. And if he has a new family, it won't reduce the amount his
young children receive either.
You can only receive one Social Security
check, so if your own earnings record entitles you to more money than the derivative
benefits based on your ex-spouse's earnings, you'll collect benefits based on the highest
amount to which you are entitled.
If you have more than one ex-spouse, and you
were married to both of them for ten years or longer, you'll collect based on whichever
earnings record gives you the higher benefits.
If you are a government employee, your Social
Security benefits will be reduced by a portion of any government pension that you are
receiving based on your own earnings.
But if you receive a government pension
because an ex-spouse worked for the government, it won't impair your ability to collect
Social Security.
about the author: Ginita Wall
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