Social Security Survivor benefit
Can a widow take her survivor benefit at age 60 and then later change to her own benefit when it becomes greater ? Say age 70
Can a widow take her survivor benefit at age 60 and then later change to her own benefit when it becomes greater ? Say age 70
Permalink Submitted by BruceM on Fri, 2023-01-27 18:19
Yes. Unlike the spouse benefit, which at age 62 or older, uses the greater of the worker’s own benefit or the spousal benefit, but uses both of them. For a surviving spouse, their own benefit and the survivor benefit are treated separately and so the survivor can move from one to the other at a later time. But there are a couple of limitations.The surviving spouse, as long as he/she has not remarried at age 60, can elect to begin the survivor benefit as early as age 60 and then switch to their own benefit at any time after age 62, with their benefit growing to age 70. However, if the survivor waits until age 62 to begin their own benefit and let the survivor benefit grow, it will only grow (that is, there will be a smaller reduction each year for beginning prior to the full retirement age) to the survivor’s full retirement age, but it will not accrue delayed retirement credits from FRA to age 70 as their own benefit would.