If a working parent passes away, the children may inherit Social Security benefits. Social Security is only one of many things you might want to consider while thinking about retirement for you, your parent, or your child.
Under certain circumstances, an adult child may receive their parent’s Social Security. Benefits received by a working parent are typically not transferred to their adult children. But an adult kid who meets certain requirements and has a deceased parent who was receiving benefits is qualified to receive that parent’s benefits.
How To Be Eligible For Your Parent’s Benefits?
An adult child who is eighteen years old and still in high school is entitled to Social Security benefits from their deceased parent. The child’s monthly payments come to an end when they graduate from high school or two months after they turn 19, whichever comes first.
Furthermore, if an adult kid is disabled due to a condition that started before age twenty-two, the adult child is eligible for their deceased parent’s Social Security. Payments will be made to the adult child for the remainder of their lives or until their impairment no longer prevents them from working, whichever comes first.
Keep in mind that an adult child cannot get Social Security benefits from a living parent. The exact circumstances described above are the only ones under which an adult child of a deceased parent may be entitled to Social Security payments that the parent was previously receiving. In addition, the child must be single or, in one of the two cases, married to a disabled person.
The amount of a worker’s Social Security benefit is determined by their contribution level and the date they quit working. As a result, based on their parent’s employment history and retirement age, an adult child will receive a certain sum.
Payments from the Social Security Administration (SSA) to adult children are reduced by 25%. The Social Security income received by an adult child is therefore 75% of that of their parent.
Although a family can get benefits for more than one kid, the SSA typically caps the total amount at 188% of the parent’s benefit. As a result, if a parent has more than two impaired children, each child may only receive a benefit of less than 75%.
How To Capculate Social Security Benefits?
Additionally, your Social Security retirement benefit payment is determined by your career-long earnings. When calculating your benefits, the SSA follows a three-step procedure.
To determine what the SSA refers to as your average indexed monthly earnings, the government first adjusts your earnings for historical changes in US wages and picks your 35 highest-paid years of employment.
Your primary insurance amount (PMI), or the sum you will receive each month if you apply for benefits at full retirement age, is then calculated by the SSA using a formula based on that monthly average (more on that later).
Finally, SSA takes into account the age at which you make a benefit claim. Your benefit amount will be less if you apply for them before you are eligible for full retirement.
Read more: Social Security update: Who will receive two checks in March?
