Pulaski

Correct, and spouse benefits are a result of someone having "worked and contributed to Social Security for at least 10 years".

Jerseygirl

In his post he said “Not only that but the foreign spouse who has never paid into SS will almost certainly qualify for survivor benefits.“

Jerseygirl

someone being the deceased...not the remaining spouse?

scrubbedexpat091

I should have stayed in the US 2 years longer....

First started working in 1996, moved to Canada in 2004, add in the 9 months I worked in the US in 2010, I still don't quite get to 10 years if I did the math correctly.

Pulaski

Correct.

Just as it used to be in the UK for the state pension, the US still has "surviving spouse" payments for Social Security.

Jerseygirl

in the UK a spouse can claim on the living spouse’s contribution...or at least it was the case. . I know Ray’s wife received a UK pension from his contributions when he was alive and she had never stepped foot in the UK.

Pulaski

Your math is quite possibly off, and depending on when you started work in 1996 and when you stopped in 2004.

From what you said you definitely have 1997-2003 so that is 7 whole years - or 28 quarters, [28]

Your 9 months in 2010 should be at least two quarters, and will probably be three quarters. It is possible, depending on your earnings, that it could be four quarters. [3-4?]

Then the two part years of 1996 and 2004 are the big unknowns - if you worked nine months of each then you would definitely have three more quarters in each, so another six quarters total. But depending on how much you earned, you could have actually qualified for four quarters of credits having only worked six months, or even less. .... I got four quarters of credit for 2001 despite having only worked for seven weeks! So it is quite possible, depending on your income, that you have a full four quarters of credits for each of 1996 and 2004, so you could a have eight quarters of credits for those two part years. [4-8?]

It sounds to me like you have at least 35 quarters of credits, and may well have as many as 39. Forty is possible, but I don't know how likely that is.

I recommend that you get in touch with the SS administration and find out what your actual contribution record says.

Pulaski

It looks like that is still the case - I thought it had ended, but there seem to be some limitations - "50% of protected rights", and I am not sure what "protected rights" are, and I can't get my head around that quickly at the moment.

durham_lad

It has always been the case, I believe, that a spouse who has never worked can claim survivor benefits. The link I provided confirms that this is also applies if the spouse is not a US citizen.

https://www.aarp.org/retirement/soci...-security.html

durham_lad

Jerseygirl

the confusion arose between ‘survivor benefits’ and claiming benefits from a living spouse’s contributions.

Giantaxe

I think it ended for people whose spouse died after April 2016. If a spouse died before that they can continue to get state pension based on the deceased spouse's record.

https://www.gov.uk/death-spouse-bene...nsion/pensions

That also seems to be the cutoff date for using a living spouse's record. Do you have a link that suggests otherwise?

https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-through-partner

scrubbedexpat091

I may contact them and find out, just out of curiosity too, because I have no idea and would be interesting to see.

I can say I never made a high income, 27,000 or around there was my best year but took a lot of over-time to get there. Wages back then were not good, not that they are now, but like $5.75 to $8.50/hr in the 1996-2004 era.


- I tried to sign up for an online account with social security but they require a US address, (annoying since the US requires me to do all this tax filing stuff, but then wont let those living outside the US access anything online) so I will have to do it the old fashioned way and call and see what my options are.

Pulaski

I don't remember what the income levels are for qualifying for "SS quarters", but I do know they are pretty low, even compared to the numbers you're talking about, because I wasn't generously paid in 2001, granted that was in New York, but still I wasn't earning mega-bucks when seven weeks got me a full year's credit in 2001.

tom169

Ah, was going to suggest that.