Q: I am 67 and my wife is 54. I started collecting Social Security at 62. If I died today would she continue to receive my $1,400 Social Security benefit? If not, what age could she? — Patrick ...

Losing a spouse is already an overwhelming emotional experience, but the financial consequences can be equally devastating. One of the biggest surprises surviving spouses face is the "widow's penalty, ...

About a month ago, I wrote a column in which I explained how “full retirement age” (the age at which a person can claim 100 percent of his or her Social Security retirement benefits) is going up. To ...

When a spouse dies, many widows assume that Social Security will automatically pay them the highest benefit available. That assumption is understandable, but it isn't always true. In reality, eligible ...

There are some instances where you can lose your Social Security benefits (or have them reduced). We cover those in this article.

I've been saving up questions I've gotten from readers about benefits for spouses. It's an issue I've covered a hundred times in this column. But the questions still keep coming. So, here is column No ...

Q: I am 69 and receive Social Security widow's benefits. Since I will be 70 in October, I want to switch to my own retirement benefit because it is a higher benefit. My birthday is the last day of ...

By Russell Gloor, National Social Security Advisor at the AMAC Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Association of Mature American Citizens Dear Rusty: I just found out, as someone who was collecting ...