I am planning to take my social security benefits at age 66. My husband is 71 and is taking social security. I am working and taking care of an elderly mother age 97 can I get any benefits from social security for my mother. She is a former postal worker and gets a pension.

Thanks

Hi,

I don't know. If your mother was born in 1921 she would need to have earned at least 32 quarters of Social Security coverage, or the equivalent of 8 years of work credits, in order to qualify for retirement benefits on her own record (https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/insured.html). Or, if she's married, widowed or divorced from someone to whom she was married for at least 10 years, then she might qualify for benefits on a spouse or former spouse's record. In that case, though, her benefits could be subject to full or partial offset due to the Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10007.pdf).

There are exceptions to GPO, however, and your mother might meet one of those especially if she was eligible for her government pension prior to December 1982 (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0202608104). If you think that there's a possibility that your mother might qualify for Social Security benefits, I would suggest contacting Social Security to see about filing an application.

With regard to your own benefits, if you were born prior to January 2 1954 you may want to consider filing for just spousal benefits only at age 66 and allowing your own benefit rate to grow until age 70. To find out if that or a different filing strategy would be best in your case, you should strongly consider using our maximization software.

Best, Jerry