If you were married 10 years or longer, are currently single, having been divorced for two years, were born on or before January 1, 1954 and have not filed for your Social Security benefit, this article is about you and for you.
Divorced spouses, if they fall into the category above, have more claiming options than their married counterparts. One of the spouses in a married couple can file a Restricted Application for Spousal Benefits, if born on or before January 1, 1954. But the other party has to have filed for their benefits in order for this strategy to work.
This is not true with divorced couples. As long as your marriage lasted 10 years, has been legally dissolved over 2 years, each are still single, then each party is considered to be “independently entitled” spouses. What does this mean? It means that if both spouses are at least 62 years old, they can claim Social Security benefits on an ex’s benefits record even if the ex-spouse has not yet claimed benefits. So, the other benefit is that while the divorced spouses that qualify are filling off their ex-spouses’ benefit, their benefit is growing by 8% per year until they decide to file.
When did these rules change? Before 1985, divorced spouses were subject to the same requirement as a current spouse. That is, the worker had to apply for Social Security before a benefit was made available to his or her divorced spouse. It was determined by Congress that many ex-spouses were holding grudges against their former spouses and to keep them from applying for benefits off of their records, thus they were waiting until later to file instead of sooner. This caused great hardship for many ex-spouses, usually women. Instead of allowing these ex-spouses to have to file for public assistance and eliminating them being held hostage to their ex-spouses filing decision, the law was changed.
Now, if over age 62, and meeting all the other age and length of marriage and divorce requirements, this exception is in place for those that qualify.
Pillars LLC is in the Corinth, MS area but service all 50 states. Roy and Diane are both National Social Security Advisors and Roy is a former CPA of over 40 years. You may contact them at dthompson@pillarsllc.com, on their website at www.pillarsllc.com or call at 601-954-0699. KNOW before you GO!!