Perhaps important for spouses receiving Social Security, I wanted to share my friend's recent experience [View all]

[LauraInLA]

To restate at the beginning: I absolutely do not want to freak anyone out, and this situation may be a very particular one and not applicable to most spouses receiving Social Security. But I thought it was surprising and shocking and wanted to share the story FYI.

Near the end of February 2025, my friend’s husband passed away unexpectedly. He was 70, and she is turning 69 this year. She is extremely frail with multiple health conditions, so we stepped in, took her to our house to live while settling things, etc. We informed SSA and were given an appointment for March 26 to finalize the paperwork relating to his death.

Their Social Security checks were due to arrive on March 3, and we of course knew that his check might arrive but would be clawed back by the bank/Treasury. Our friend was living with us so had few expenses, and very luckily her husband had inherited some money in 2024, so she wasn’t entirely reliant on her Social Security. Because her lifetime earnings and check were about double that of her husband’s, she wasn’t expecting survivor benefits, etc. We assumed this would all be pretty straightforward.

Cut to about March 15. Imagine our surprise when not only was her husband’s March benefit removed from their bank account — SO WAS HERS. Days of calling SSA first thing in the morning to sit on hold literally all day resulted in never speaking to a live person. Finally a letter from the bank and a conversation with them gave us an answer of a sort.

Our friend had her husband listed as her “beneficiary” and “decision maker” on her SS account, just as he was on hers. The bank informed us that her money had been clawed back because it was listed under his name.

We couldn’t speak to SSA until the prearranged phone appointment on March 26. Then we learned that our friend would not be receiving her benefit until a new beneficiary/decision maker was assigned. This would be her daughter, who would be taking our friend in to live with her family in another state. A new in-office appointment needed to be made in that state; the next available appointment wasn’t until EARLY MAY.

This meant our friend would not receive her SSA money on April 3 or May 3. After the paperwork and dust cleared, she should retroactively receive money for those three months — I wouldn’t hold my breath until she sees the deposits in her bank account.

My friend luckily has the resources and help to survive without that money for a few months. If this had happened last year, she would have lost her ONLY INCOME for at least 1/4 of 2025. If she’d had no friends/family to take her in, she would have been homeless. I find it doubly distressing that an incapacitated spouse — precisely the person who relies on their husband for caregiving, food, and shelter — might have been left without income for several months after the death of their sole carer.

I do not know that this would have been different procedurally under President Biden’s administration. I’d like to think it might have been expedited, at the very least, but bureaucracy does necessarily turn slowly.

I also am not certain how much my friend’s various illnesses played a role in her husband’s designation as decision-maker/beneficiary. I don’t want to fear-monger, and this might not be an issue for other surviving spouses.