NEWS: SSA outed for not explaining Survivor's options properly (55, social security, state)

[reed303]

See https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-...-and-widowers/

https://oig.ssa.gov/sites/default/fi...9-18-50559.pdf

Most C-D posters have known this for some time.

[mathjak107]

no surprise there . this is why for years i keep saying spring for the money and go to the experts on one of the sites like social security solutions .

if you think the few bucks they charge for a work up is expensive wait and see what free cost you

[Mircea]

Yes, many of us here knew that and constantly harped on it, in spite of the nay-sayers.

[rjm1cc]

Unfortunately their is a lot of problems with the qualifications of the people hired and the training they get in the government. You will probably find that good supervisors have employees that can give you the correct answers and poor supervisors have employees that do not.

This should be no surprise and I do not think the problem is just the SS dept.

Best to do your own research before you go to SS.

[mathjak107]

social security and the options and choices are the biggest decision in most people's financial lives because so much is involved .

yet their entire knowledge of how it works is poor and their thinking revolves around what if i die so they never seek good professional help because they don't want to part with 50 bucks or whatever it is for the level of work up they need . what if i die is the least important factor to base things on .

the typical clerks at ss are not knowledgeable in all the aspects . once you get to a higher level person like we had for our appeal they are pretty good but even then not spot on .

the higher level person we dealt with at the appeal had no idea that after fra the month you file becomes important because you can lose credit for an entire year and never get it retro , only going forward .

so they are not the best sources .

[mathjak107]

for those who are not aware by what i meant by the month you start after fra matters , a little gotcha is this :

when you get delayed credits from fra to 70 , each month you delay you earn more and more .

however if you file mid year you get those credits in january of the following year but only going forward not retro too . .

your rate they pay you when you start mid year is the rate without all the delayed credits you earned that year . you won't see those calculated until january .

so in january they increase you but never pay you retro for the months the year before you earned the credits but did not get them .

it is always best to file in january so you capture all delayed credits earned and not just going forward .
ss tells you this in a paragraph but really does not explain what it means to you nor do most employees at ss have a clue .
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"Delayed retirement credit is generally given for retirement after the normal retirement age. To receive full credit, you must be insured at your normal retirement age. No credit is given after age 69.

If you retire before age 70, some of your delayed retirement credits will not be applied until the January after you start benefits. The calculator below gives you the amount with all credits applied for comparison purposes."

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/quickcalc/early_late.html

[AnnaLee2]

Originally Posted by mathjak107

it is always best to file in january so you capture all delayed credits earned and not just going forward .

AnyPIA shows this except in the year you turn 70. When you put in a benefit date at or after the 70th birthday, the calculator gives the full 1.32 factor. I don't know which is correct for the age 70 claim.


I know you were waiting and changed your mind. I think I might have mentioned before that I am somewhat concerned that the AnyPIA program does not give the widow benefit the delayed credits but maxes it out at FRA in the restricted application scenario where you don't work but delay. It does this no matter what age you die, even the day after your 70th birthday. I wrote SSA about this and just got a long canned letter for people who work past FRA. It included the statement "AnyDRC that a worker earns also applies to the benefits of the worker’s widow orwidower." but also advised me to go to the local office. The canned letter is hardly comforting since it assumes you keep working. Which DRC is it? I didn't pursue it since the local office only sends you home and someone calls you on the phone. No answer about why (or if) AnyPIA does this computation incorrectly. I know they don't use AnyPIA when SSA computes benefits but AnyPIA has never been corrected and I am sure this has been questioned before. I hope the software they do use knows how to do it correctly if my husband, a novice, is widowed and gets an inexperienced person on the phone at SSA.


DRC is delayed retirement credit.