Social Security benefits held back because a retiree kept working are not lost. When the retiree reaches full retirement age, the agency recalculates the benefit and raises it to account for the months it withheld. The catch is that the credit comes as a higher monthly payment later, not as a check for the missing…

Social Security gives retirees a one-time way out of a claim they regret. A person who applied for retirement benefits can cancel the application, but only within 12 months, only once, and only by paying back everything received. The Social Security Administration’s page on how to cancel a benefits application says an application can be…

People who wait until after full retirement age to apply for Social Security can be paid up to six months of back benefits. The catch is that taking the back pay permanently lowers the monthly check from then on. For some households the trade is worth it, and for others the monthly reduction costs more…

When Social Security checks are trimmed for people who keep working, only one kind of income is measured. The agency’s retirement earnings test looks at wages and net self-employment earnings, and it leaves out pensions, annuities and investment income. A retiree under full retirement age can have a sizable pension and a brokerage account without…

Social Security can pay benefits to a grandchild on a grandparent’s record, but only when three main conditions line up. The grandchild’s parents have to be disabled or dead, the grandchild has to have lived with the grandparent since before turning 18, and the grandparent has to have provided at least half of the grandchild’s…

A widow or widower generally has to have been married to the worker for at least nine months before the death to collect Social Security survivor benefits. A shorter marriage does not always close the door, because federal rules carve out several exceptions. For anyone widowed after a brief marriage, which category the marriage falls…

A husband or wife of any age can collect Social Security on a worker’s record while caring for the worker’s child who is under 16. The age-62 rule that applies to most spouses does not apply in that case. The rule sits in the federal regulations, 20 CFR 404.330, which says a spouse qualifies either…

Anyone born after January 1, 1954, meaning on or after January 2, 1954, who applies for either a Social Security retirement benefit or a spouse’s benefit is treated as applying for both. The rule is called deemed filing, and it applies at any age, so claiming early does not let a person take just one.…

A wrong number on a worker’s Social Security earnings record is easiest to fix in the first few years. After that, the Social Security Administration can correct it only in a short list of situations. The rule is a flat clock that starts when the calendar year of the earnings ends. The federal regulation says…

A child under 18 can collect Social Security on a retired parent’s record, and the payment can reach up to half of what the parent is entitled to at full retirement age. The catch is a cap on the whole family. Once several relatives are drawing on the same worker’s record, Social Security trims the…