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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???
Quick update on HR 82 - there was actually a hearing scheduled for March 2025 in the House Ways and Means Committee. While this doesn't guarantee passage, it's the furthest the bill has progressed in years. Consider joining advocacy groups like the Social Security Fairness Coalition who are organizing virtual lobbying days this spring. Also, regarding your specific situation, if your spouse's benefit increases in the future (like when he turns 70 if he's delayed claiming), your potential spousal benefit would increase too, which might exceed the GPO reduction at some point.
That's the first bit of good news I've heard about HR 82! I'll definitely look into the Social Security Fairness Coalition. And that's a great point about my husband's benefit - he's 66 now and planning to delay until 70, so his benefit will increase. I hadn't considered that might eventually overcome the GPO offset. Thank you!
Has anyone else noticed that the SSA website barely even EXPLAINS GPO properly???? I had to find out about it from my teacher's union, SSA never warned me until it was too late!!!! The whole system is designed to keep us in the dark!!!!
My cousin works for SSA and she told me that only income that had FICA taxes taken out counts for SS benefits calculation. So jobs where you got a W2 and paid into the system. She said distributions from retirement accounts DEFINITELY don't count toward your SS benefit calculation no matter how they're taxed.
Thank you everyone for the helpful information! It's clear that my IRA distributions won't help with Social Security calculations, so I'll focus on continuing my part-time work to replace those zero years. I'll also look into the divorced spouse benefits since we were married for 22 years. I appreciate all the advice!
Nia Jackson
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?
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Anastasia Fedorov
•thats true! my cousin had to go to the office in the next town over cuz his local one kept saying they couldnt do anything. its like some offices got the memo and others didnt
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Diego Vargas
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.
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Chloe Anderson
•This is incredibly helpful - thank you! I've written down all this information and I'm going to try both calling and visiting in person tomorrow. Will update with how it goes in case it helps anyone else in the same situation.
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