What are survivor benefits? My spouse will probably die before the end of this year.

This is basically how it works and I'll use me as an example.

My husband retired at 62 (the GM plant closed). At the time he received 1500. I retired at 62 and I received 752 based on my work experience. This was already half of what my husband received. If my husband had been bringing in 2000, I would have been brought up to 1000 half of his 2000.

Now this is basically. What will happen is your SS will drop off and you will get DHs. This is if he made more than you. There is a formula but it pretty much works out that way. This is how the SS rep explained it to me.

Another way its been explained on this site is you are already getting half of his, so you just receive the other half. But no matter how you look at it, you will loose some SS income. Which basically would be the lower of the two.

I think you can call SS and they can give you some info. Remember, when husband passes his Med part B will drop off. So lets say he receives 1500, a deduction of 135 for part B has been made. So his gross is 1635. Which is what should be used in the calculations for a surviving spouse.

Hope this has helped a little.

SS is generally the husband's benefit although it may be reduced if you took the wife's benefit early. My mother took the wife's benefit @62 so when Dad died she got 70% of his benefit.

All I know (and this is so random) is that living even one minute into the New Year will increase SS benefits by a small amount--maybe $150? Daddy passed on 45 minutes into the New Year, and mother was surprised that she got a 'raise'.

Are you talking about Social Security benefits?