Social Security for Surviving Spouses: How to Optimize Your Benefits
Losing a spouse can be both emotionally and financially devastating. If you're a widowed spouse, Social Security survivor benefits may help fill the financial void. Survivor benefits are paid to surviving spouses (and sometimes dependent children and elderly parents) of deceased workers who earned enough to be covered by Social Security.
If you're a surviving spouse, you can receive benefits starting at age 60, or 50 if you have a disability. You may even qualify for survivor benefits using a late spouse's work record, provided that you were married for at least 10 years and you aren't remarried by age 60, or 50 if you're disabled. (Regardless of your age, you can receive survivor benefits if you care for your late spouse's child who's younger than 16 or who has a permanent disability.)
There's a key difference between survivor benefits and spousal benefits, which are paid based on the record of a current or former spouse who's still living. You're allowed to take survivor benefits and then switch to your retirement benefit later on, or vice versa. But if you were born after Jan. 1, 1954, you can't file for spousal benefits and switch to retirement benefits later on. (This used to be a common way spouses would maximize their benefits, but Congress changed the rules in 2015.) As a result, if you start one benefit, then switch to another, you can maximize your lifetime Social Security benefits.
Source Fool.com
