Any of our Colorado readers who have gone through divorce are aware of the impact this process can have on their finances. If you are in the process of getting divorced, there is a good chance that your Social Security benefits will be impacted. This is one of the many divorce issues that you need to concern yourself with, ensuring that you don’t find yourself in a bad position later in life.
Many retirees are uneducated about how Social Security benefits are distributed and calculated, leading to them overlooking how a divorce will affect them during retirement.
If your marriage lasted at least 10 years, for example, and you have been divorced for a minimum of two years, you are going to be eligible for a divorced spousal benefit. In short, this gives you the option to claim your ex-partner’s benefit or your own, whichever of the two amounts is higher.
For those who go through divorce and then decide to get remarried, you will typically lose any benefit you may have been eligible to receive as a result of your former marriage. Depending on when you split, this may not be that big of a deal because you could become eligible for your new partner’s benefits.
There are many ways that a divorce will impact your life, both personally and from a financial perspective. If you are closing in on retirement age or have already hung up your work boots, it is important to realize how your Social Security benefits will be impacted by a divorce.
Source: Fox Business, “5 Ways Divorce Can Impact Your Social Security Benefits” No author given, May. 13, 2014