My wife and I are both 77. I started to collect SS at 66. My wife was on SS disability at around age 60 and this got converted to regular SS later on. She gets less than 50%. of my amount.
I spoke with SS today and they said she is entitled to almost $275.00 per month more to bring her to 50% of my SS and they don"t know why this wasn't done. We lost a lot of $ over the years. I am grateful for the monthly increase, but am I entitled to more for the last 11 or 12 years. Thanks

Hi. I can't give you a definite answer without access to your Social Security records. One of the requirements for entitlement to benefits is filing an application. Therefore, the only way that your wife could be paid spousal benefits for more than 6 months prior to the month she applies for spousal benefits is if a prior protective filing date was established for her and if that protective filing date was not properly closed out by Social Security.

When you applied for your benefits if you listed your wife's information on your application, then based on the information in your question that would have established a protective filing date for your wife (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0200204010#b). In that case, Social Security should either have obtained an application for spousal benefits from your wife, or they should have sent her a 6-month closeout letter advising her that the protective filing date established for her would no longer be valid after 6 months from the date of the closeout letter.

Presumably once this error was discovered Social Security had your wife apply for spousal benefits. If they only paid 6 months of retroactive benefits and if the letter awarding her spousal benefits was dated within the past 60 days, you could file an appeal on the basis that you believe that your application for retirement benefits established a protective filing date for your wife, and that filing date should be used to pay your wife spousal benefits retroactively to your entitlement date.

If more than 60 days have passed since your wife was awarded spousal benefits then you have two options. One option would be to file an appeal alleging good cause for late filing (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10058.pdf). The other option would be to submit a written request to Social Security on a form SSA-795 (https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-795.pdf) asking Social Security to reopen your wife's application for spousal benefits to establish an earlier date of entitlement based on error on the face of the evidence (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0204020080). The evidence in your case would be the protective filing date you presumably established for your wife by listing her on your application, and the presumed error would be Social Security's failure to either solicit an application from your wife or send her a 6-month closeout letter.

Please note that the possible avenues of recourse I've mentioned above are based on presumptions that I can't know for sure without access to all of your and your wife's Social Security records. Therefore, whether or not your wife could actually be paid additional benefits is dependent on the actual facts involved.

Best, Jerry