Hi Larry,

I'm trying to help my parents, and was hoping you could help. My dad is 82 and my mom is 68. (Second marriage for both.) My dad collects SSI benefits, but my mom does not. She retired from the Federal government under the old civil service rules, which means she did not contribute and is therefore ineligible. She has less than 40 quarters from her time prior to civil service. Should she be eligible for spousal benefits or, when my dad passes, widow benefits. My understanding is that she would be eligible if she had never worked, but her local SS office is telling her that she forfeited those benefits by being a civil servant. Please advise. Thanks for your time.

Hi,

I'm assuming that your father is receiving Social Security retirement benefits rather than Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which is a needs based benefit administered by Social Security. If so, it sounds like the reason that your mother isn't eligible to receive spousal benefits is due to the Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision. The GPO provision says that if a person is receiving a pension based on their work for a U.S. government agency (e.g. federal, state, local) where their earnings were exempt from Social Security taxes, then any spousal or widow's benefits for which the person would otherwise qualify must be offset by 2/3rds of the amount of their government pension. The reasoning used by Congress when passing the GPO legislation is explained in the following Social Security publication, which also outlines the exceptions to GPO: https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10007.pdf.

Therefore, it sounds as like your mother probably wouldn't qualify to receive spousal benefits unless her spousal rate would be more than 2/3rds of the amount of her civil service pension. And, she'll likely only be able to receive widow's benefits in the future if her widow's rate exceeds 2/3rds of the amount of her civil service pension.

Best, Jerry