Social Security may be your largest or one of your largest assets. How you manage it, by deciding which benefits to collect and when, can make an absolutely huge difference to your lifetime benefits. And those with the highest past covered earnings have the most to gain from maximizing their Social Security.
I've been answering questions and writing columns about Social Security each week for the past two years on PBS NEWSHOUR's website. The editors at Forbes asked me to post a Q&A each day from those columns. To see all my columns, please go to my software company's site, www.maximizemysocialsecurity.com, and click More Press below the WSJ quote.
Today’s question asks if, after collecting a survivor's benefit before 70, it will be possible to receive both the survivor's benefit and a retirement benefit at 70. The answer reviews how benefits are determined in this situation and notes the potential effect this determination might have on the total benefit amount.
Question: I am 69 years old and my husband died three years ago when he was 68. When he died, I started receiving widow's benefits. I have never filed for my own Social Security benefits since I am still working. When I do leave my job, which will be after I am 70, am I also qualified to receive Social Security benefits under my name along with the widow's benefits?
Answer: You won’t receive both, just the larger of the two. So if your own age-70 retirement benefit exceeds the widow's benefit that you are now collecting, you’ll get a higher check, but it may not be much higher. If this isn’t the case, you’ll just continue to collect your widow's benefit and receive not a penny more in benefits based on all your years of contributing to the system. This is, of course, outrageous — the result of no-doubt well-meaning social engineering by petty bureaucrats whose notions of fairness were never put to popular vote.
