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From age 60 – or 50 for those with a disability – a survivor can apply for or apply for the deceased spouse’s Social Security benefits (if these are higher than the survivor’s or if the survivor does not have a qualifying employment history). temporarily and to delay claiming their own benefits (allowing their benefits to increase until they reach full retirement age or beyond).
“Surviving spouses can earn a lot more income,” said Trinh Phan, senior attorney for Justice in Aging. The average survivor’s benefit is $1,467 per month, according to Social Security Administration reports.
For example, Miss Thornton has always worked for nonprofits—first a food cooperative, then a theater—and never earned as much as Miss Brown, a staff and instructor at Evergreen State College.
Ms. Thornton had to apply for Social Security early at age 62 and turned to pet sitting to complete her $953 per month benefit. He lived frugally and did not visit his family often. “I couldn’t buy a plane ticket and fly to California,” he said. “I had to postpone maintenance of my home for years.”
However, when Social Security began paying survivor benefits, her monthly income nearly doubled to $1,849. And he received a lump sum of $72,000 retroactively for the years the agency rejected his application.
An unknown and perhaps unknown number of people have never been able to marry their late gay partners. But a second group also became eligible for widow’s and orphan’s pension: same-sex couples who have been married for less than nine months, before one of the spouses dies, the legal threshold for the survivor’s pension.
Anthony Gonzalez and his partner, Mark Johnson, lived together in Albuquerque, NM for about 16 years, thinking they would never get married in their home state.
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