How does getting married affect Social Security disability? Getting married can change a benefit recipient’s income status, among other factors, and affect their ability to receive benefits. A social security disability lawyer can help benefit recipients understand how a change in their living situation can affect their benefits.
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How Does Getting Married Affect Social Security Disability?
Anyone who receives Social Security Disability benefits knows that the financial and medical criteria beneficiaries must meet are strict. Beneficiary recipients may want to know – how does getting marries affect Social Security disability? As a Social Security lawyer Chicago can attest, many changes in living situation can affect eligibility for benefits. Many beneficiaries may be surprised to learn marriage is one of these changes.
Marital status does not always impact SSD benefits, but in some cases, it can lead to benefit loss. This often occurs when people receive benefits based on another person’s earnings record, such as dependent or survivor benefits.
Spousal benefits
Spouses who receive disability benefits through based on their spouse’s benefits can lose their benefits through divorce, re-marriage, or the death of a spouse. A widow or widower receiving benefits based on their deceased spouses Social Security should be aware of how re-marriage will affect their benefits. How does getting married affect Social Security disability for widows and widowers?
The way that marriage affects widows or widowers who collect survivors benefits depends on age. These surviving spouses generally lose their eligibility for survivors benefits if they marry again before the age of 60. However, the Social Security Administration establishes different rules for surviving spouses who qualify as disabled under SSA standards. These individuals can remarry after age 50 without any impact on their survivors benefits.
Benefits for ex-spouses always terminate when an ex-spouse remarries, as any Social Security lawyer in Chicago can explain. However, the loss of benefit eligibility is not necessarily permanent. An ex-spouse may be able to resume collecting benefits again if his or her new marriage ends. The ex-spouse must prove the marriage ended in one of the following ways:
- Death
- Divorce
- Annulment
The ex-spouse also must not be eligible to collect a larger benefit based on someone else’s earnings record. If an ex-spouse’s new marriage ends, the SSA may consider the more recent spouse’s earnings record before reinstating benefits.
Benefits for children
Children who receive Social Security dependent benefits lose their benefits when they turn eighteen. Usually, there is little need to ask the question, how does getting married affect social security disability? – when it comes to children. However, the issue may come up if a child chooses to marry as a minor.
Generally, the children of SSD beneficiaries lose their entitlement to dependent benefits if they marry. Minor children who collect dependent benefits always lose those benefits upon marriage. However, the SSA makes special provisions for disabled adult children. These are grown children who meet the SSA’s definition of disabled and developed their disabling conditions before age 22.
If a disabled adult child marries another disabled adult child, the child can continue collecting benefits. However, marriage to anyone else results in the loss of the disabled adult child’s benefits.
Direct beneficiaries
How does getting married affect Social Security disability benefits for people who receive benefits based on their own disability. In short, it does not affect them.
People who collect SSD benefits based on their own earnings can always marry without any impact on their benefits. Any Social Security lawyer in Chicago knows that SSD eligibility is based on current income, past earnings and medical condition. Marriage does not impact any of these variables. Thus, changes in marital status, living situation or total family income cannot change a direct beneficiary’s entitlement to benefits.
Benefit recipients who want to know more about how marriage will impact their benefits can call a social security disability lawyer for answers.
