I became a widow at the age of 51. I was born in 1950. I retired from a parish office in 2011 and collect my retirement check. I went to social security to collect my widows benefit and was denied because of the amount of my retirement check. I do not understand what my retirement check has to do with me trying to collect my deceased husbands social security. We were married 17 years and 11 months when he died. I have a phone appointment scheduled for April 9 2018 because I’m now handicapped and can’t go into the office. Please advise! The phone appointment is for me to ask them to look at my situation again.

Hi,

I'm sorry for your loss.

The issue in your case appears to be the Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision. If you receive a pension from your work for a government agency (federal, state, local, etc.) where your earnings were exempt from Social Security taxes, then your Social Security widow's benefits would likely be offset by 2/3rds of the amount of your government pension. Depending on your pension amount and widow's rate, this could result in up to a full offset of your widow's benefits.

I don't know what advice to give you, but before your appointment you may want to read through the following Social Security publication to see if you might meet an exception to the GPO provision: https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10007.pdf.

Best, Jerry