How the Widow’s Survivor Benefit Works - Social Security

Hey there - welcome back to the Happiness IRA where we talk about how money weaves itself into your life today we're going to be talking about the widows benefit of Social Security. What you may not realize as a widow is that you have dual entitlements so what that means is that you cannot only claim on your own record but you also could claim on your late spouse's record. A few years ago there was some Social Security reform and it really changed the way people could access these dual eligibilities dual entitlements but it really has not changed for widows so there's some optimization that you have at your fingertips. Now hear me correctly, you cannot stack these benefits on top of each other you're going to have to choose between one or the other but the order at which you choose makes all the difference so can I share a story to kind of round out this idea sometimes I think we get into the number side of things of finances and we don't fully understand how this actually impacts someone's life now I'm tweaking some of the details of their life to keep them anonymous of course as I always do but I want you to see how this works I met with a woman about a week ago she's 62 so her age right now gives her the ability to either collect on her late spouse's record or she has her own record that she could claim on she goes into the office and they tell her "Your husband's record is higher than yours so you may as well collect on his benefit rather than your own benefit and you know what you can start that today." They're going to tell you what your exact benefit is for today which one's the best for you today they're not necessarily looking at strategizing with you long term I'm sure there's some liability with that I don't actually know so I met with this woman and we're going through some of the details of her husband's estate and we're talking about Social Security and we lay them out side by side she shows me, "Okay they told me that the best thing for me is to claim on my husband's record." I was able to use a program where I actually was able to compare the two scenarios and I just by switching which records she claimed from first I increased her income by $400,000 over her lifetime. My compliance department is going to want me to tell you there's a caveat to this there's some assumptions built in there I'm assuming she's living to 95 I'm assuming there's a cost of living adjustment there. $400,000 gets added to her benefit and that's without taking any stock market risk. It's a big deal! So people don't recognize that social security can make such a drastic impact in their retirement lifestyle and for widows especially because you have this have-your-cake- and-eat-it-too you're able to claim on your own record or your late spouse's record you really need to be thoughtful as you turn 60 to make sure that you're doing the best thing for your own livelihood long-term. Alright friends, that's all I have for today thank you so much for tuning in I appreciate it as always if you found this video helpful I hope that you will be willing to share this with somebody else who might be a widow in your life especially if they're at age 59 because they're going to have to make this decision and you can drastically change the trajectory of their retirement years I mean if I don't have to take $400,000 from my portfolio and I can take it from Social Security how much more does that extend my lifestyle it's a big difference. So, with that I will leave you and you take care.

Channel: Liz Hand

Views: 65,311

Keywords: social security, survivor benefit, happiness ira, elizabeth hand, cfp canton ohio, pleasant wealth, how to collect social security, womens finances, widows benefit, retirement planning, retirement income, financial planning, retirement, benefits, social security benefits, social security at 62, social security for dummies, social security 2018, social security benefits explained, social security survivor benefit, devin carroll social security

Id: PXNpwWlfVMU

Length: 3min 21sec (201 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 18 2018