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Based on what you've shared, here's a summary that might help you plan: 1. Your SSDI benefits will NOT change after marriage 2. His SSDI benefits will NOT change after marriage 3. His SSI ($110/month) will likely be reduced or eliminated after marriage 4. Any income-based benefits like SNAP, housing assistance, Medicaid, Extra Help for Medicare, etc. will need to be reassessed based on your combined income If losing the $110 in SSI and potentially some adjustments to other benefits is manageable for your budget, you should be in an okay position financially after marriage. I would recommend scheduling an appointment with SSA to get a precise calculation of how your specific benefits would be affected.
One more tip - after you get married (if you decide to), make sure you both contact Social Security right away to report the change. For the SSDI recipient, it's mostly just updating your name if you change it. For the SSI recipient, they need to report the marriage immediately to avoid overpayments. Those overpayment notices are a nightmare to deal with!
This is critical advice. SSI recipients must report any change in living arrangement, marital status, or household income within 10 days. SSDI recipients should report name changes, but their benefits aren't affected by marital status (except in certain cases involving disabled adult children benefits, which doesn't seem to apply here).
That's not accurate for this situation. Your neighbor may be referring to filing for her own retirement benefits early, which does permanently reduce them. But in the OP's case, they're on SSDI, which doesn't involve an early filing reduction. At FRA, the SSDI converts to retirement at the full rate, and the spousal benefit is recalculated. The current small spousal supplement won't affect the FRA calculation.
Thanks! Yes, I did ok on the sale. It was getting to be too much to maintain by myself after my husband passed.
Just a note - if you had significant capital gains from selling your house last year, that could potentially affect your tax situation for that year specifically. For a single person, up to $250,000 in capital gains from selling a primary residence can be excluded if you lived there at least 2 of the last 5 years.
my friend has same situation and the apartment manager told her she needed some tax form for her rent but it was for low income housing tax credit thing not for normal taxes!!! maybe thats what ur landlord was talking about???
I think they're changing their policy again. My nephew works at Social Security and he says they're getting new guidance every week about this. Some offices have the updated system and others don't yet. Maybe try a different office?
Quick update for everyone following this thread - the official policy change is outlined in SSA Emergency Message EM-23056, which officially limits recovery of most overpayments to 10% of monthly benefits. However, there are exceptions for fraud cases. The implementation date was March 15, 2025, but as others have noted, the actual rollout has been inconsistent across field offices. If you're getting resistance, specifically mention EM-23056 and request to speak with a Technical Expert or the Office Manager who should be familiar with this directive.
Lena Müller
my neighbor said you could get benefits from multiple spouses but i guess thats wrong from what everyone here is saying?
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Raj Gupta
•Your neighbor is completely wrong. You can never receive benefits from multiple spouses simultaneously. You can only receive one benefit - the highest one you're eligible for. The SSA will always pay your own retirement benefit first, and then supplement it if a spousal or survivor benefit would be higher.
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Paolo Bianchi
congrats on figuring out ur ss strategy! ive been putting off even thinking about it bc its so confusing lol. good luck with ur application!!
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Ava Williams
•Thanks! It definitely took me months of research to figure out what works best for my situation. My advice is to start looking into it earlier than you think you need to - there are so many rules and exceptions to understand!
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