Here’s how your ex-spouse could be costing you thousands in Social Security money

The Social Security program provides benefits to millions of Americans. The primary recipients are retired workers who contributed into the system during their years in the labor force. But the Social Security Administration also pays benefits to family members of eligible beneficiaries.

This includes ex-spouses who meet the necessary requirements. These types of claims don’t affect the primary beneficiary’s Social Security, nor their family if they receive benefits. However, those ex-spouse beneficiaries that have more than one ex could be missing out on loads of money because they falsely believe that they cannot claim it.

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Here’s how your ex-spouse could be costing you thousands in Social Security money

People who were married and divorced more than once may be eligible to claim spousal benefits on any one of their former husbands’ or wives’ Social Security record, if the following criteria are met:

• The claimant is single
• The claimant is at least 62 years old
• The claimant was married to the person for at least 10 years
• The ex-spouse’s Primary Insurance Amount is at least double the claimant’s

Also know that if you have been divorced for less than two years, your ex-spouse must be receiving Social Security benefits. Otherwise, you are considered “independently entitled” to spouse benefits and your ex-spouse only has to be eligible to claim Social Security benefits.

When you go into the Social Security office to apply for benefits on your own record, you can also check to see if you can make a claim on the record of one of your ex-spouses. The SSA representative will ask some basic questions, one of which will be what is their Social Security number.

If you don’t know it, Dr Ed Weir, a former SSA manager, explains that the SSA representative should have no problem finding it. They will want to know each ex-spouse’s name, date of birth, how old they would be now, as well as if you know the city and state where they were born, Weir shares.

Once they’ve determined which ex-spouse’s record will give you the highest benefit, they will sign you up to receive monthly payments from that account, which could be worth up to 50% of their benefit, if they are still living.

Weir points out though that there are a lot of people who are eligible for a lot more money and don’t realize it because they incorrectly think they cannot switch to collect benefits from another ex-spouse’s record after they file their original claim.

He says that for example, a person may have begun claiming on one ex-spouse’s record ten years ago, but another ex-spouse kept on working during that time and now their PIA has surpassed the other’s record. Also, perhaps an ex-spouse has passed away and you could now be entitled to up to 100% of what that ex-spouse was eligible to receive in Social Security benefits, and that amount is higher than the amount you are receiving from the other ex-spouse’s record.

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