Why On Earth Would An Ex Spouse Qualify For Half Of My Social Security Or Pension? (credit, income)

[younglisa7]

This is not the case for me but it shows just another break down in our system. If someone is divorced their Ex can receive 50% of their SS and pension while the 1st person gets 100% of their benefits. This is what a divorce settlement is for. Why should an ex spouse receive anything after the divorce is final?

So for a husband, his ex, and his new wife(?) they would receive 200% of his benefits. Is that right? That seems insane. Just another bill for the American people to pay for.

Retirement Benefits

Benefits for a divorced spouse
Your divorced spouse can get benefits on your Social Security record if the marriage lasted at least 10 years. Your divorced spouse must be 62 or older and unmarried.

The amount of benefits he or she gets has no effect on the amount of benefits you or your current spouse can get.

Also, if you and your ex-spouse have been divorced for at least two years and you and your ex-spouse are at least 62, he or she can get benefits even if you are not retired.

[mimimomx3]

If the ex spouse marries, I believe they get nothing.

[cricket_factor]

Originally Posted by mimimomx3

If the ex spouse marries, I believe they get nothing.

I hope you're right. My ex-husband remarried not long after we divorced, yet all the time during the divorce he was saying,"Ten years! Ten years!" (We were married 12 years and he kept saying he'd get my social security benefits because we had been married at least ten years.)

I've got a ways to go before I retire - when I get there, I'll think about it seriously.

[younglisa7]

Originally Posted by mimimomx3

If the ex spouse marries, I believe they get nothing.

That's what it says but they should still get nothing!! Who's paying for this?

[cricket_factor]

Originally Posted by younglisa7

That's what it says but they should still get nothing!! Who's paying for this?

We pay for it! We worked for it...yet if they don't get married, they get a portion of it. Make an appointment with the Social Security office - when I got divorced, my mother went with me and a lady sat down with us and tried to explain it to us.

I think as long as the ex-spouse gets married, they get half of their new spouse's SS benefits. But if they don't, they can still draw upon yours.

[evilnewbie]

This is old news.... its been around for a while... you know what is even stranger... if your wife cheats on you and has a baby with another person and doesn't tell you until the baby is one-year old and you divorce her after finding out... guess who has to pay child support... yup, the duped husband... Its called presumed paternity or something like that.... not only that you have to pay spousal support even if she cheated on you... having extramarital affairs seem to play no role in divorce proceedings... America is just plain weird...

[North Beach Person]

Retired pay from the military, too. In MD, also pension benefits.

[knoxgarden]

There's more to it than that. Getting half applies only if the divorced spouse isn't eligible to receive SS benefits based on his or her own work credits. They get half the ex-spouses benefits or their own, whichever is larger.
If they remarry and are still married when retired, then they can no longer collect on the first spounses SS. However, if they divorce the second spouse, they again become eligible to collect from the first spouse's SS. But again, only if it is larger than benefits they earn from their own work credits or what they would get from the second marriage.
SS looks at all the possible ways you can collect and lets you use the one that gives you the most income. But only one. You don't get spouses benefits in addition to your own.
(This came up on Suze Orman's show last night. That was her explanation.)
This is designed for stay-at-home partners who never worked outside the home or who put their own careers on hold to raise a family and then get dumped after years of marriage. Having one partner stay at home means the other one didn't have to pay for childcare, housework, cooking, etc. It's compensation for that. The same with splitting a pension. It's a marital asset.

[FarNorthDallas]

It's to protect stay at home moms who may not have a work history. If the ex-wife goes back to work they can usually make enough where their SS would be higher than the ex-spouse's half.

[younglisa7]

Like I said "broken" and so wrong.