Social Security After Divorce: the facts

1. A divorced spouse can collect on a former spouse's record if the marriage lasted at least 10 years, the claimant is unmarried and at least 62, and the former spouse is entitled to benefits, or is at least 62 and the divorce is at least 2 years old (20 CFR 404.331). The former spouse is not told and is not affected.
2. The benefit is the same as a married spouse's: up to half the former spouse's full benefit, reduced for claiming before your own full retirement age, never increased for waiting past it, and paid on top of your own only as the excess (404.333, 404.410(b)).
3. Example: a former spouse's full benefit of $3,000 and your own of $1,000, claimed at your full retirement age: $1,500 a month, your own $1,000 plus a $500 top-up.
4. If the former spouse dies, a surviving divorced spouse of a ten-year marriage has the same survivor benefit as a widow or widower: the former spouse's full benefit, reduced from 60 (404.336). Remarriage after 60 does not end it.
5. Remarriage before then ends the divorced spouse's benefit while the new marriage lasts; a later divorce or death restores it. Several former spouses can each collect on the same record without reducing one another or the worker.
6. Claiming on a former spouse's record is treated as claiming your own benefit too, so the timing rules of the spousal tool apply: no reward for waiting past full retirement age on the spousal part, and a reduction for claiming early on both.

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