You can start receiving monthly widows benefits at age 60. You can remarry age 60 or later and the benefits are not terminated. You may be eligible to receive retirement benefits on your new husband’s record once you turn age 62 and will need to contact your Social Security Office regarding this entitlement application.
If you are a widow and remarry before age 60, you will not be able draw benefits from your deceased husband as long as you are married. In the event of a divorce or death of your second husband, you may be eligible to receive benefits from your deceased spouse at age 60. At the time of your retirement Social Security will check to determine eligibility from your work record and former spouse(s).
A widow may also apply for widows benefits before age 60 and if she is at least age 50 and became disabled within 7 years of the death of her husband. The same rules of remarriage apply to a disabled widow as regular surviving widow.
If you are the divorced widow of the deceased and you were married at least 10 years, are currently age 60 and unmarried, you can receive widows benefits from the record of your deceased ex husband. Remarriage at any age would terminate entitlement to this type of widows payment.
Widows that are not age 60 but have minor children of the deceased may be eligible to receive “Parents” benefits while the children are under age 18. These widows payments will stop if there is a remarriage before age 60.
You should have your husband(s) Social Security Number and/or enough information for it to be located by the agent at the Social Security Office when you go into apply for your social Security Retirement. The Social Security Office will automatically check all records where you could have possible entitlement to see which record would pay you the highest payment. You can not receive on more than one record but on the work record which will pay you the highest benefit payment. Be prepared when contacting your Social Security Office by marriage records, death records and divorce records when you go into file; this will save you time if they determine you would receive benefits of a higher amount on a prior husband’s record. Do not delay contacting your Security Office via phone or on line upon the death of a spouse. The agent you contact will let you know of any entitlement and what you need to do to proceed. You can go to SSA.Gov and get many of your questions answered and also file an application on the Internet.