Can I file for Survivor benefits at age 60 and continue to work and is there an income that I cannot exceed before Social Security deducts from the benefit amount? I was married for more then 10 years, divorced then he passed away.

Hi. You can potentially claim surviving divorced spousal benefits as early as age 60, but if you earn too much your benefits would be subject to full or partial withholding until you reach full retirement age (FRA). If you claim benefits before FRA, Social Security will withhold $1 of your benefits for every $2 that you earn above what’s called the exempt amount. The exempt amount of earnings for 2021 for people who won't reach FRA this year is $18,960. So, whether or not you could be paid any benefits prior to FRA depends on how much you're earning.

It sounds like your best strategy for claiming benefits would be one of the following:
1) File for reduced survivor benefits at age 60 or as soon as your earnings will permit at least some benefits to be paid, then switch to your own record at age 70; or,
2) File for reduced retirement benefits on your own record at age 62 or as soon as your earnings will permit at least some benefits to be paid, then file for unreduced survivor benefits at full retirement age (FRA). However, if your ex-spouse collected reduced Social Security retirement benefits prior to his death then you would likely want to claim survivor benefits sooner than your FRA.

Normally, you would want to start out drawing the lower benefit first and then switch to the higher benefit when it reaches it's highest potential rate. Our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) could help sort all of this out for you so that you can determine the best strategy for maximizing your benefits.

Best, Jerry