Can I Draw Ss Disability and Widows Benefits
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Social Security Q&A: What Happens to My Disability if I Collect Widow's Benefits?
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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 how eventually filing for a survivor's benefit will affect a disability benefit. The answer reviews how the benefit amount would then be calculated, comments potential filing strategies for the ailing spouse, and explores potential future strategies for the surviving spouse after attaining full retirement age.
Question: I am awaiting determination of my Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and am currently 58. My husband is 69 and in poor health. If he passes before me, would the SSDI continue if I applied for survivor benefits?
Answer: I'm extremely sorry about your health problem and that of your husband. I wish I had some real medicine up my sleeve, but it's just financial advice.
If your husband passes away, you can, if you are disabled, collect a survivor benefit starting immediately. (They are available to disabled widows and widowers starting at age 50.) You will receive your current SSDI check plus the difference, if it's positive, between your survivor benefit and your own disability insurance benefit. In other words, you'll receive what's known as an excess survivor benefit.
Your survivor benefit (before it's transformed into the excess survivor benefit by deducting your own DI benefit) will be based on what your husband was receiving in Social Security retirement benefits at the time of this death. Or, if he hasn't yet started to collect retirement benefits, it will be based on what he would have received had he applied for benefits the day he passed away.
I presume your husband is already collecting. Otherwise, I'd advise (as indicated in this column) that he not begin collecting until 70 so he can permanently raise the survivor benefit that you'll receive.
When you reach full retirement age, you may want to withdraw what would be your automatic application for your retirement benefit. When you reach full retirement age, your DI benefit automatically converts to what's called your retirement benefit. But by waiting to file for your actual retirement benefit, your excess survivor benefit will become a full survivor benefit. Meanwhile, your retirement benefit will grow by 32 percent by delaying its collection until age 70. If your current DI benefit multiplied by 1.32 exceeds your full survivor benefit, this strategy may lead to the same benefit value you'd otherwise have received between full retirement and 70, but more benefits after 70.
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Can I Draw Ss Disability and Widows Benefits
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2015/02/05/social-security-qa-what-happens-to-my-disability-if-i-collect-widows-benefits/#:~:text=(They%20are%20available%20to%20disabled,as%20an%20excess%20survivor%20benefit.