Will 401k withdrawal of $25,000 increase my husband's Medicare premium or affect his Social Security benefits?

Yes, this withdrawal will likely affect your Medicare premiums, but not your husband's Social Security benefit amount. The 401k withdrawal counts as income for determining your Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA) for Medicare Part B and Part D premiums. SSA looks at your modified adjusted gross income from 2 years prior, so you'll probably see premium increases in 2027 based on your 2025 tax return that includes this withdrawal. Your husband's actual Social Security benefit calculation won't change, though - that's fixed at the time of claiming.

This happened to me last year after I took $30,000 from my IRA for my daughter's wedding. The SSA sent me a letter about 2 years later saying my Medicare premium would go up by almost $70/month! I was so frustrated because nobody warned me. I tried calling the SSA for weeks and couldn't get through to anyone. Finally used a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) which got me connected to an agent in about 15 minutes - they have a video showing how it works here: https://youtu.be/Z-BRbJw3puU. The agent explained I could file for a "life-changing event" reduction since it was a one-time withdrawal, not regular income. Might be worth looking into in your situation.

ur SS benefit doesn't change but MEDICARE will GO UP!! happened to my brother in law when he took money from his 403b last year and now hes paying like $230 MORE for medicare every month!!! the govt always finds a way to take more of our money lol

I just went thru this! Take a deep breath - it's not as bad as it seems. 401k withdraws don't affect your SS payment amount AT ALL. That's fixed forever (except for COLA). For Medicare, yes premiums can go up but it depends on your total income. If this pushes you over an IRMAA threshold, you'll pay more, but only for ONE year since this is a one-time withdrawal. And like someone else said, you can file form SSA-44 for life-changing events if this was due to something like disaster recovery.

Do you and your husband file taxes jointly or separately? This can make a HUGE difference!!! When my wife and I withdrew from our 403B we filed separately that year and it saved us from the Medicare increase completely.

Has anyone actually gone through the life-changing event process with Social Security? I'm worried it might be complicated or that they'll deny our request since home repairs might not qualify as a "life-changing event" even though it was from storm damage.

It's important to understand exactly how IRMAA works. In 2025, the first threshold for married couples filing jointly will be around $206,000. If your combined income (including the $25,000 withdrawal) stays below that, you won't see any Medicare premium increase. If it pushes you over that threshold, your Part B premium would increase by approximately $68/month per person in 2027. The next threshold is around $258,000, which would mean a larger increase. These are based on your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI), which is essentially your AGI plus tax-exempt interest income.

One thing no one mentioned - did your husband take this distribution BEFORE hitting full retirement age? If so and he's still within his first year of receiving benefits, there could be issues with the earnings test. But if he's past FRA, which sounds like he is at 67, then there's no earnings test to worry about, just the Medicare IRMAA potential increase.