Editor’s Observe: This story initially appeared on SmartAsset.com.
Social Safety advantages will be an vital a part of your monetary plan for retirement, whether or not you’re single, married, widowed or divorced.
In the event you have been married beforehand, it’s useful to grasp how claiming a Social Safety profit for divorced partner standing works.
Regardless that your marriage might have ended, the Social Safety Administration can nonetheless pay advantages to you when sure circumstances are met.
Understanding the eligibility necessities may help you make the most of Social Safety divorced partner advantages for those who’re entitled to obtain them.
Earlier than submitting for Social Safety advantages, work with a monetary adviser to be sure to’re getting all you’re entitled to.
Social Safety Advantages for Divorced Spouses, Defined
If somebody is receiving Social Safety advantages, sure members of their household may be eligible to obtain advantages. This contains present spouses, kids and ex-spouses. In the event you’re divorced, your former partner could possibly declare a retirement profit that’s equal to one-half of the retirement profit you obtain.
When somebody claims a Social Safety profit as a divorced partner, it doesn’t have an effect on the amount of cash their former partner receives. So in case your ex-wife or ex-husband claims a divorced partner profit, that wouldn’t change what you obtain from Social Safety month-to-month. However your earnings file could be used to find out how a lot cash they’re capable of get.
Divorced spouses can declare Social Safety advantages in the event that they want the extra earnings to complement different streams of earnings in retirement. However there are limits on who qualifies for this profit and the way a lot cash they’ll obtain.
Who Is Eligible for Social Safety Divorced Partner Advantages?
The Social Safety Administration spells out who can and may’t obtain Social Safety divorced partner advantages.
In the event you’re a divorced particular person, your former partner can obtain advantages primarily based in your earnings file if these circumstances are met:
- The wedding lasted 10 years or longer.
- Your former partner is single.
- Your former partner is age 62 or older.
- The profit your ex-spouse may obtain primarily based on their very own earnings historical past is lower than what they’d acquired primarily based in your earnings historical past.
- You’re entitled to Social Safety retirement or incapacity advantages.
These guidelines apply even for those who’ve remarried. In case your ex-spouse remarries, then they wouldn’t be capable of declare any Social Safety advantages primarily based in your earnings file.
As a substitute, they’d have to assert advantages primarily based on their very own work historical past or their new partner’s earnings file.
There’s additionally one other wrinkle that may get added in if a former partner remarries, then will get divorced or their new partner dies. In that scenario, they’d be capable of declare advantages a surviving partner’s profit or a divorced partner profit, relying on whichever one is larger.
So you possibly can’t essentially keep away from divorced partner advantages for Social Safety even when your ex remarries.
It’s attainable that they may nonetheless select to assert a Social Safety profit for divorced partner standing if that quantity could be larger than a surviving partner profit following the loss of life of their partner.
What Does Social Safety Pay Divorced Spouses?
The quantity of Social Safety advantages a divorced partner can obtain will depend on your earnings file, their earnings file and whether or not you’ve utilized for retirement advantages or not.
In the event you qualify for retirement advantages by Social Safety however have but to use, your former partner can obtain advantages primarily based in your file. However it’s important to have been divorced for no less than two steady years for this to use.
In case your former partner is eligible to assert retirement advantages primarily based on their very own work and earnings historical past, Social Safety would pay that quantity to them first.
They may then qualify for added quantities primarily based in your earnings in case your retirement profit is larger than theirs. At a most, divorced spouses can obtain a profit that’s equal to one-half of your profit quantity.
A divorced partner who was born earlier than Jan. 2, 1954, and is at full retirement age or older may select to assert a divorced partner’s profit and delay fee of their very own retirement profit. Divorced spouses born after Jan. 2, 1954, don’t have that choice.
Working after divorce can have an effect on a former partner’s advantages since they’d nonetheless must comply with the common limitations on earnings. Receiving sure pensions may have an effect on how a lot cash a divorced partner is ready to obtain primarily based on their earlier partner’s earnings file.
However once more, having a former partner obtain divorced partner advantages gained’t have an effect on how a lot cash you’re capable of get from Social Safety.
Submitting for Social Safety’s Divorced Partner Advantages
In the event you assume you’re eligible to assert divorced partner advantages from Social Safety, you possibly can apply on-line for those who’re 62 or older or inside three months of turning 62. You may as well begin your utility for divorced advantages on-line or in-person at a Social Safety workplace.
You’ll want some key info to use for a Social Safety profit for divorced spouses. That features:
- Your identify, Social Safety quantity and gender
- Your start identify, date of start and place of origin
- Citizenship standing
- Whether or not a public or spiritual file was fabricated from your start earlier than age 5
- Whether or not you’ve filed for Social Safety advantages, Medicare or Supplemental Safety Earnings or if anybody has performed so in your behalf
- Any alternate Social Safety numbers you’ve used
- Your work standing and whether or not you’ve been unable to work due to sickness, accidents or different circumstances at any time throughout the previous 14 months
- Army service standing
- Railroad trade employment standing
- Whether or not you’ve earned Social Safety credit below one other nation’s system
- Whether or not you qualify for or count on to obtain a pension or annuity from federal employment
- Your present marital standing
- Names, dates of start and Social Safety numbers for former spouses
- Dates and locations of every of your marriages and once you have been divorced
- Names of single kids below age 18 or disabled earlier than age 22
- Employer’s identify and earnings for the present yr, earlier yr and subsequent yr
- Month you need your advantages to start
- Whether or not you wish to enroll in Medicare Half B for those who’re three months away from turning 65
You might also be requested for sure paperwork to show your eligibility for Social Safety divorced partner advantages. That may embrace a start certificates, proof of citizenship, navy discharge papers, W-2s or different tax varieties, your unique marriage certificates and an official divorce decree.
A very powerful factor to recollect is that the earlier you apply for advantages, the earlier you may get accredited and begin receiving them.
The Backside Line
In the event you’re frightened about how a Social Safety profit for a divorced partner might have an effect on your individual advantages, the reply is under no circumstances. And for those who’re a divorced partner who’s serious about in search of these advantages, it’s useful to grasp who qualifies and how one can apply. Both manner, it’s vital to contemplate the place Social Safety advantages match into your bigger retirement planning image.
Disclosure: The knowledge you learn right here is at all times goal. Nevertheless, we generally obtain compensation once you click on hyperlinks inside our tales.
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