... We identified 30,768 individuals receiving retirement benefits as of January 2019 who may be eligible for additional widow(er)’s benefits. From this population, we selected a random sample of 100 beneficiaries for review. ...
Of the 100 retirement beneficiaries sampled, 69 were eligible for higher widow(er)’s benefits. Of these 69 widow(er)s, there were
- 20 who filed claims and whom SSA determined were entitled to widow(er)’s benefits before the start of our audit and
- 49 who were eligible for approximately $630,000 in widow(er)’s benefits. ...
This occurred because SSA (1) employees did not always assess and take action when cases were alerted for possible payment increases, and/or (2) did not have processes to detect beneficiaries potentially eligible for higher widow(er)s benefits. Based on the results of our review, we estimate 15,076 retirement beneficiaries were eligible for $193.8 million in widow(er)’s benefits as of September 2019. Further, we estimate 12,615 of these beneficiaries could lose an additional $530.9 million in widow(er)’s benefits over their lifetimes. ...
Social Security agreed that it will have to do something to address this problem.
My guess is that the underpaid group includes more widowers than you might think. A lot of widower claims get missed because the widowers just don't think of applying for benefits on their late wife's account. In my experience two types of claims most often missed are Disabled Adult Child and Widowers benefits.
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