Social Security death benefit confusion - received $64 checks for adult children but was told only spouses eligible?

The attorney was definitely wrong. The $255 lump-sum death benefit can ONLY be paid to a surviving spouse living in the same household at time of death, or eligible dependent children under 18 (or up to 19 if still in high school). Adult children are never eligible to split this payment. My guess is that these payments were possibly tax refunds or some other government payment related to your mother's final affairs. Did your mother receive Social Security benefits herself? Sometimes there are small adjustments or final payments processed after death. It's also possible it could have been related to Medicare Part B premium refunds if she had those withheld from her Social Security.

i got a similar check when my dad died last yr but it was for 103$ and i was the only kid. nobody explained it either just showed up in the mail

The $255 death benefit is definitely only for spouses or dependent minor children. No exceptions to this rule! I worked for SSA for 28 years before retiring, and this was absolutely clear in our policies. The most likely explanation is that these were underpayments due to your mother at the time of her death. When a beneficiary dies, any benefits they were due but hadn't received yet can be paid to the next of kin. Unlike the death benefit, these underpayments CAN be paid to adult children if there's no surviving spouse. For example, if your mother passed away on June 15th but had not yet received her June payment, that money would be due to her estate. Similarly, if there was any cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) retroactively applied, or if she was underpaid for any reason, those funds would be distributed to eligible survivors according to a specific order of priority.

I'm curious - did the checks specifically say Social Security Administration on them, or just US Treasury? Because US Treasury issues checks for many different government departments and programs. If it just said Treasury, it could have been from literally dozens of different sources - tax refunds, stimulus payments, etc. Regarding the Social Security death benefit - it's still $255 today (hasn't changed in decades!) and is definitely only payable to a surviving spouse who was living with the deceased or eligible dependent children. Your attorney gave you incorrect information, which happens a lot since many attorneys aren't Social Security experts.

NOBODY EVER knows how the heck Social Security works!!!!! Even their OWN EMPLOYEES give different answers to the same question!!! I spent 4 MONTHS trying to get my mother's final check sorted out after she passed. Called SSA like 25 times and got hung up on or disconnected EVERY SINGLE TIME or was on hold for hours. When I finally got through, they told me there was some underpayment due to her and I eventually got a check for $127 but it took forever!!! The system is BROKEN!!

Wait is the death benefit seriously STILL only $255?? That wouldn't even cover a fraction of funeral costs these days! That's ridiculous - it should be at least a couple thousand to help with expenses. No wonder your family was confused about what those checks were for. The whole system needs updating.

my cousin said she got something similar for her mom but it was actually from her moms pension not social security maybe check if your mom had a pension?

One more possibility - did your mother work for the federal government or a state/local government that didn't participate in Social Security? If so, there could have been a small death benefit from her retirement system that was split among you as next of kin. Some government pension systems offer modest death benefits to survivors that are separate from Social Security.

Just wanted to add my experience - when my grandmother passed away last year, we received similar unexpected checks from US Treasury about 6 weeks later. Each of her 3 adult children got around $95. I called the SSA to ask about it and after being transferred twice, they confirmed it was an underpayment from her final month of benefits. Apparently when someone dies mid-month, they're entitled to the full month's payment if they lived past the 1st of the month, but the system sometimes processes it incorrectly initially and has to send corrections later. The agent said this happens fairly often and that's why there's usually a delay in processing these payments to next of kin.