Do you get your ex's Social Security after divorce?
You may question if you may collect spousal Social Security payments on your ex's job record if you're one of the hundreds of thousands of couples who divorce each year.
Kurt Czarnowski, principal of retirement planning business Czarnowski Consulting, notes, "There are similarities & variances in the eligibility standards for ordinary spousal benefits & divorced spousal benefits."
If you've been divorced for at least two years, you can collect retirement benefits on your ex's record if he hasn't applied. Social Security will pay your retirement benefits first.
A divorced wife's Social Security?
Czarnowski thinks the absence of the "claim some now; claim more later" technique is the main commonality between ordinary & divorced spousal payments.
Social Security Benefits
Czarnowski says someone who has achieved full retirement age might claim a spousal or divorced spousal pension and defer their own retirement benefit.Anyone born after Jan. 2, 1954, must claim their retirement benefit.
Full retirement & spousal benefits
Czarnowski says someone who has achieved full retirement age might claim a spousal or divorced spousal pension and defer their own retirement benefit.Anyone born after Jan. 2, 1954, must claim their retirement benefit.
Full retirement & spousal benefits
Similar eligibility requirements apply. Czarnowski states the term of marital threshold distinguishes spousal & divorced spousal benefits.
Spousal benefits can only be paid if the other spouse is receiving retirement payments. “With divorced spousal benefits, though, payments can be made even if the ex has not yet started collecting,” he notes.
Czarnowski believes it's vital to distinguish between benefits for a "divorced spouse," i.e., the ex is still living, & payments for what the Social Security Act calls a "surviving divorced spouse," i.e., the ex is died.
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