[Dr. Sivana]

The upshot is that married couples generally receive two revenue streams from Social Security. In some cases, that means two retired-worker benefits. In other cases, it means one retired-worker benefit and one spousal benefit. Regardless, when one spouse dies, one of those revenue streams disappears. But the surviving spouse can generally then receive the higher of the two payouts as the survivors benefit.

My wife is considerably younger than I am. Only marriage for both of us. We still have a minor child at home. My wife has always been a 100% home-maker. My understanding is that if I die, she gets a survivor benefit that is equivalent to SS until she is older.

In any event, I expect to put off drawing SS until 70, to maximize her benefit as she should long out live me, and my benefit is her benefit.

[where's_the_Outrage?]

That's not my understanding, she has to wait until she's 60:

When a married person dies while receiving Social Security retirement benefits, the surviving spouse is eligible for survivors benefits if he or she satisfies certain conditions. The most common qualifications are as follows:

The surviving spouse must be at least 60 years old

[damper99]

Your wife won’t get the benefit level that you got by deferring to age 70. They will scale it back to what would have been your benefit at your full retirement age (probably 67 for you).

[mware]

That is what happen when my dad died when he was 55. Seven kids, 4 under 18. She got his SS and continue to until her death at the age of 75. The SS card had a capital D in front of his SS#.

[Eepsy]

She has to have had a baby at 44 or older to maintain social security payments without a break. Otherwise payments to her will end when the child turns 16 and resume when she turns 60. The child may continue receiving payments to 18 or 19 years of age.

[SuperLuminal]

My wife, also, is considerably younger than me...
She is almost 86... We were married in 1960...
She gets a very small SS payment now, since she never had to work, since high school...

We firmly believed that a wife’s job was to supervise the home and raise children...

IAC, we do not depend on SS to live on, since we have an ample retirement package from my employment...