Ask Rusty: I’m in Poor Health & Need to Know my SS Options

Dear Rusty: I plan to stop working soon. My health is not good. I am 66 years old, born in June 1959, so my full retirement age is 66 years and 10 months. My wife passed away in March 2024, and she was collecting Social Security (SS) benefits when she died. I have no dependent children. In general, what benefits am I entitled to? Signed: Unhealthy and Struggling Dear Unhealthy and Struggling: Sorry to hear that your health is failing, and that you will need to stop working soon. But do not fear — Social Security will be there for you. Here is some info to help you decide your next possible steps. Since you will not reach your full retirement age (FRA) until next year (in April 2026), your earnings limit from working for this year is $23,400 (or $1,950/month). The earnings limit will apply only if you decide to claim SS early (this year). If you decide to take Social Security this year, your earnings from before you take SS won’t count, but your monthly earnings for the remaining months of this year will be subject to the 2025 monthly limit ($1,950). If your monthly earnings exceed that amount, you won’t be entitled to SS benefits for that month, unless your total earnings for 2025 are less than $23,400). If you don’t exceed the annual limit, your 2025 Social Security benefits won’t be affected by your work earnings. Next year, the year you attain your FRA, your earnings limit will be much higher (about 2.5 times more, or something more than about $63,000). If your 2026 earnings up through March do not exceed that limit, then you can claim your SS benefits a bit earlier in 2026 (before your FRA), and your benefits won’t be affected, except that your monthly benefit amount will be permanently reduced by 0.556 percent for each month you claim before your FRA. For example, if you were to claim for your SS to start in January 2026, you would get 98.3 percent of your FRA amount. So, provided your work earnings won’t exceed about $63,000 between January and March 2026, you could claim effective January 2026 without worrying about the Social Security earnings test. So, depending upon your health, you could claim SS to start in January 2026, likely without worry about the earnings test, and would get about 98.3 percent of your FRA benefit. Or, health permitting, you could wait to claim SS starting in April 2026 to get 100 percent of the benefit you’ve earned from a lifetime of working. Point is, you just need to be careful not to exceed the Social Security earnings tests prior to reaching your full retirement age, or the Social Security Administration (SSA) will take away some of your benefits. It “takes away” by withholding future monthly payments as long as needed to recover what you owe. Worse case penalty for exceeding the 2026 monthly limit would be no benefits for any month you exceed about $5,300, or a penalty of $1 for every $3 over the limit if you exceed the 2026 annual limit before your FRA. You do, however, have another option as your wife’s surviving spouse — you can claim your benefit as a surviving spouse prior to claiming your own SS retirement amount. But the earnings test described above (if you claim before your FRA) would also apply to your survivor benefits. So, again, your plans for working enter this decision. If you decide to stop working this year, you could, for example, decide to claim your survivor benefit this year and collect that until you reach your FRA in April 2026 when you would get 100 percent of your personal SS retirement amount. In fact, you might even decide to collect your survivor benefit longer, allowing your own SS benefit to grow until you are 70, at which time you would get about 25 percent more than your FRA amount. Indeed, if your survivor benefit is higher than your personal age 70 amount, you can just continue to claim the higher amount. I suggest that when you decide that you must stop working full time, you contact the SSA at (800) 772-1213 to discuss whether it is best to claim your survivor benefit from your wife first and delay claiming your own until a later time (to get a higher amount). You can make an appointment to discuss your options with the SSA over the phone, before deciding when (and what) to claim. And, of course, if you have any further questions, we are always here to assist you with your decision.       

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Russell Gloor is a national Social Security advisor at the AMAC Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC). The 2.4-million-member AMAC says it is a senior advocacy organization. Send your questions to: ssadvisor@amacfoundation.org.  Author’s note: This article is intended for information purposes only and does not represent legal or financial guidance. It presents the opinions and interpretations of the AMAC Foundation’s staff, trained, and accredited by the National Social Security Association (NSSA). The NSSA and the AMAC Foundation and its staff are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration (SSA) or any other governmental entity.