On Oct 30, 7:29 am, BreadWithS...[at]fractious.net wrote:
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Thanks for the details. And thanks for the link. Exactly
what I needed.

"nomail1983[at]hotmail.com" <nomail1983[at]hotmail.com> writes:

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If the survivor is older than 62 (ie. would be eligible
for his or her own benefits regardless of deceased spouse),
said survivor may take either his or her own benefits,
or may take survivor's benefits based (only) on the spouse's
earnings. It's not a combination.

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"In many cases, a widow or widower can begin receiving one
benefit at a reduced rate and then, at full retirement age,
switch to the other benefit at an unreduced rate"

There are links on that page to a variety of other
details for the various potential situations (ie. including
if the survivor remarries, etc).

--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
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- quote -

Yes, a person receives the highest pension of several different ways
of computing it.

My mother says, "I originally received Soc Sec benefits as a survivor,
not based on my own earnings".

Could that be right?!

I am 350 miles away, so I do not have access to her records. I rely
on her to fish out the documents I request. But as you know, GIGO.

I asked her to send me the last "Your Social Security Statement"
that she might have gotten. The above statement was her reply.
Klunk!

(Is it possible that she does not have a YSSS? I don't know when
the SSA started sending YSSSes.)

Facts....

My mother is now 82 years old. Midlife, she worked full-time as a
teacher for many years. Earlier in life, she held full-time positions
on a local newspaper. So she "must" have an earnings record of
her own. I don't know how many years that covers. That is why I
asked for the YSSS document.

My father died a few years ago at age 79. Their ages differed by
about 3 years. During his lifetime, he worked in his own law and
CPA firm for at least 35 years. Before that, he worked full-time in
other firms for many years. He probably had earnings history even
before that; but I don't believe any of that is relevant.

Some time after my father's death, my mother incorrectly reported
self-employment income for a one-time royalty agreement. Her
CPA agreed that that was a mistake under the circumstances,
so he filed an amended return, shifting the self-employment income
to royalty income and eliminating the self-employment income
altogether. As a result, the IRS sent a notification that the
self-employment would be reduced to zero for that year.

I am trying to determine if that reduction will affect her Soc Sec
benefits adversely, based on the 35-year formula that the SSA
uses.

I suspect not, even if her Soc Sec benefits are based, at least
in part, on her own earnings. Certainly not if her Soc Sec benefits
are based entirely on her as a survivor.

Anyway, I think my question is independent of those facts. I
simply want to know: if a person has earnings of their own, and
they are a survivor of a person who had earnings of their own, are
the (surviving) person's benefits based on the deceased person's
earnings alone, or on some combination of their earnings, or
something else altogether?

If I omitted some relevant facts, what additional facts are needed
in order to answer my question?

I will continue to search my own SSA documents, ssa.gov and
fairmark.com for the answer. I am "sure" I read about this
somewhere, but it went in one eye and out the other :-). In the
meantime, I thought someone here might offer a simple answer.
And a specific pointer would be helpful.