I still don’t call myself a “widower.” It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. If someone seems really interested I tell them my wife passed away.
This post is about Social Security Survivors Benefits. A friend mentioned it to me and I thought I should look into it. (Standard disclaimer here: I’m not a professional accountant, advisor, lawyer doctor or social worker. I can barely understand some of this. And most of it, not at all.)
Kathy didn’t receive a huge Social Security payment because she went on disability very early. When we were in business together, our accountant suggested that Kathy become my employee and I would be the owner. Our primary reason was to afford health insurance for the two of us through Kathy. We had always intended to switch back and forth so that I could add to my retirement fund on alternate years. In theory, self-employment tax payments would supply me with Social Security from our profits. Some years were good; others not so much. In many ways, it was lucky that we never switched. That permitted Kathy to get Disability payments which turned into regular Social Security when she reached 65.
Those payments helped pay the mortgage and car payment and made it possible for me to take care of Kathy.
I didn’t need to stress (as much) about getting new clients. Or trying to find an outside job. (Good luck with that, Peter.) The idea with Survivor’s Benefits or Widower’s Benefits is to pay you a portion of the spouse’s Social Security to help you make ends meet. If you are still working and make more than $15,720/year (in 2015) you won’t be entitled to benefits. You are not retired to them. Or not retired enough. Sorry to say, right at the moment and looking at my most recent tax returns, Lehndorff Design did not exceed that threshold. So I decided to at least find out about it.
I called the Springfield Social Security Office and made an appointment to meet with them for early November. They told me to bring a copy of Kathy’s death certificate, birth certificate and a copy of our marriage certificate. At that point, I had just received the death certificates from my friends at the funeral home but I had no idea where to look for our marriage certificate. I looked in the file cabinet upstairs, but all I found was where Kathy had written “Married 1977” on the outside of a folder that had our birth certificates in it. I wondered if a photo of our wedding would work? Probably not.
Side story: In the late 90s, Kathy was just starting to have the angry mood swings that would foreshadow full-blown Huntington’s Disease. When we were sharing the studio in Holyoke, MA I brought up our upcoming anniversary (December 23). She asked how many years we were married. All of a sudden I drew a blank on the actual year. I said, “It was either 1978 or 1977.”
Kathy flipped out. “What kind of husband can’t even remember when he was married!”
So, I called the town clerk in Fitchburg MA where we were married and asked them. I relayed the info to Kathy, “We were married on December 23, 1977.” She said, “Thank you for calling.” Now I realize she didn’t know either and wrote it down on that file folder so she could remember it too. I am sure we have the original someplace; in an envelope; in a box; in another box; in the little attic space we have. But that attic area was off-limits for me a week or so after she passed away. Too many emotions and memories in those boxes. So, I called up Fitchburg and sent them a check. It took a week or so, but I received it in the mail.
On the day of my appointment, I went down to the Social Security Office in Springfield. Kathy and I had to go there once for a face to face interview for her disability. If you have an appointment, it really isn’t that bad. The waiting area is an interesting salad bowl of humanity: People from everywhere speaking all different languages. You sign in and get a number at a little kiosk thing next to a guard’s desk. It reminds me of getting a number at the deli.
It turned out the number 61 doesn’t matter. It is just something to make you antsy and pay attention and stare at the video screen. A case worker came out through a door and called my name. Once I got in the office area I was led to a computer terminal. The woman explained that a case manager in a different office, in a different town was going to help me over a video system. She explained that it “counts just as much.” I could tell by something on the screen that it was in Pittsfield, a small city in the Berkshires. They must use this system to use the workers they have more efficiently.
I had to swear I was who I said I was and then we started. First we talked about the $255 one-time benefit that goes to the surviving spouse. I called it the “burial benefit” but he said, “People call it that, but it is just a survivors payment.” After my $4000 dollar death bill, I can see why they downplay it.
When it came to the survivor’s benefits it got more complicated. He asked if I make less than $15,720 a year. I felt guilty that I had made under that amount in the last few years. “Yes, for the recent past.”
Then he asked, “How many hours a month do you work?”
I don’t know about you, but usually I think of it as hours per week, not per month. So I said, “Well I have been trying to work at least 20 or 30 hours per week but it was hard taking care of my wife….” Turned out, that was the wrong answer. To get the widower’s spousal benefits and be self-employed, you can’t work more than 45 hours per month. Their reasoning is that if you are self-employed you have more flexibility to work more hours. That is only 11 hours a week. Now I have no idea how they would even know how many hours I actually work, but I decided to just wait for now. He explained that as I get closer to retirement I could use Kathy’s spousal payments and delay actually filing for Social Security. That way my payment will be a touch higher. One odd fact about this benefit is that I believe Kathy’s ex-husband could get the benefit too, even though they were divorced over 40 years ago. It would not affect my benefit. It seems like a waste of taxes myself, but what do I know?
The agent at Social Security mailed me a “benefits matrix” which I have yet to get translated into human. I’ve got nothing against using abbreviations on a chart, but they should at least give you a key; some idea of what in heck they mean. I just need to call them up. The $255 Drop-in-the-bucket-payment arrived in our bank account three weeks later.
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