To directly answer your question: Yes, your wife will continue to receive auxiliary benefits as the mother of a minor child when you switch from retirement to SSDI. And yes, her payment will likely increase, though not necessarily by the same percentage as your increase. The technical explanation: When you switch to SSDI, two things happen that affect family benefits: 1. Your Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) increases because SSDI doesn't apply the reduction factor for early retirement 2. The Family Maximum Benefit (FMB) is calculated differently under SSDI rules than under retirement rules Generally, the family maximum for SSDI is 150% of your PIA for a disabled worker and one or more auxiliaries. This means if your benefit increases by $675, your wife's benefit might increase by about $337 (assuming you're not already at the family maximum). As others have mentioned, watch for potential disruptions during the transition period. SSA may need to recalculate and adjust payments, which sometimes causes temporary payment issues.

One more thing to think about - when your son turns 16, your wife's benefits will stop until she turns 62 unless she's disabled herself. that surprised us!

i heard we're supposed to get ALL the money back not just some of it??? my neighbor said her financial guy told her it could be like $40k for some people who've been retired a long time with WEP

Thank you all for the helpful information! I'm going to wait until the bill actually passes before making any decisions. In the meantime, I'll try to get through to SSA using that Claimyr service someone mentioned to get official guidance on my specific situation. I've been losing sleep over potentially making the wrong decision, but I feel much better now understanding that I should be eligible for both the retroactive payment AND potentially switching to spousal benefits afterward.

To your original question - you're absolutely right that you need 40 quarters (10 years) of Social Security-covered employment to qualify for retirement benefits. If you're at 22 quarters now, you'd need 18 more, which means about 4.5 more years of work where you pay into Social Security. If you do get those 40 quarters and qualify, your benefit would still be reduced by WEP because of your state pension. The reduction is most severe if you have under 20 years of substantial earnings. Each year of substantial earnings you have between 20-30 years reduces the WEP penalty gradually. Since you said you have 23 years in state government, I'm assuming most or all of that was non-covered employment (not paying into Social Security). So you'd need to figure out how many years of substantial earnings under Social Security you actually have.

Something else to consider - even if you get your 40 quarters and qualify for Social Security retirement benefits (reduced by WEP), you should also check if the Government Pension Offset (GPO) might affect any potential spousal or survivor benefits you might be eligible for. GPO is separate from WEP and reduces spousal/survivor benefits by 2/3 of your government pension amount. These provisions can be quite complex, so it might be worth consulting with a financial advisor who specializes in federal benefits before finalizing your retirement plans. The SSA's WEP calculator can also help you estimate the impact: https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/anyPiaWepjs04.html

To clarify something important from the comments - after you reach Full Retirement Age (which you have at 68), there is NO earnings limit whatsoever. You can work and earn as much as you want without any reduction to your Social Security benefits. This is different from when someone collects early (before FRA) when there are strict earnings limits. Your neighbor may have been referring to the rules that apply before reaching FRA.

Regarding your specific situation, I'd recommend taking these three steps: 1. Request your Social Security Statement online through your my Social Security account or by calling SSA - this will show if your recent work has already increased your benefit 2. File an application for divorced spouse's benefits immediately - since your marriage was over 10 years and you're already receiving retirement benefits, there's no downside to applying 3. Keep documentation of your current earnings to verify that future benefit adjustments are correct While the automatic recalculation happens annually after tax information is processed, it's still good practice to monitor your benefit amount for changes. These recalculations typically happen in October of the year following your work.

does anyone know if this affects disability too? my husband gets SSDI and was going to switch to retirement at full retirement age, but now im worried he wont know what his retirement would be

The RIDICULOUS thing is that they HAVE all this information in their systems!! There's absolutely NO TECHNICAL REASON they couldn't show you both benefit types. It's just bad programming and outdated systems. My neighbor works for SSA and even she admits their computer systems are from the STONE AGE. Our government at work folks!!!