Will my disabled adult child's Social Security benefits increase when child-in-care benefits decrease due to earnings?

This is a great question about Family Maximum Benefit calculations! You're partially right, but there are some nuances to understand. When your wife's CIC benefit is reduced due to earnings, your DAC's benefit CAN increase, but only up to the point where the total family benefits reach the FMB limit of 175%. The system will automatically recalculate and redistribute the available benefits. Here's how it would work in your scenario: If your wife's benefit drops to 15% of your PIA due to earnings, your DAC's benefit could potentially increase from 37.5% up to 50%, as long as the total (your wife's 15% + your DAC's benefit + your benefit) doesn't exceed the FMB. However, there's a catch - the DAC benefit can never exceed 50% of your PIA, even if there's "room" under the FMB. So in your case, your DAC's benefit would increase, but only up to the maximum 50% of your PIA.

opensocialsecurity is usually right but sometimes the calculators don't handle these complex family benefit situations perfect. i had kind of similar issue with my disabled son and ex-wife getting benefits. what happened was when my ex's benefits went down because of her job, my son's went up automatically. SSA just recalulated it on their own.

The SSA automatically adjusts benefits when someone in the family has their benefits reduced due to earnings. But remember that it takes time for their systems to catch up! My daughter's benefits didn't increase until 3 months after my husband's benefits decreased from working. Also, the FMB is adjusted annually with cost-of-living increases, which can change the calculations slightly each year.

I think you're getting confused between two different concepts. The 175% FMB limit and the 50% benefit rate are separate things. Your DAC gets 50% of your PIA, and your wife gets 50% of your PIA for CIC benefits. That's 100% + 50% + 50% = 200%, which exceeds the 175% FMB. So everyone except you gets proportionally reduced. When your wife's benefit gets reduced due to earnings, that doesn't affect the FMB calculation directly. The 175% limit is still in place, but now there's more room under that limit for your DAC. So yes, your DAC's benefit would increase as your wife's decreases, potentially back to the full 50% if your wife's benefit is reduced enough. I had to deal with this exact situation. Once my spouse's CIC benefit reduced to about 20% due to earnings, my DAC's benefit was automatically increased to the full 50%.

Just to add a bit more info - the Family Maximum Benefit is calculated based on the worker's Primary Insurance Amount using a formula that gives a result around 150-180% of the PIA. The EXACT percentage varies based on your specific earnings record, so it might not be exactly 175% in your case. If you want to see the exact FMB for your situation, you can check your Social Security statement or call SSA directly. I've been trying to reach them about a similar issue for WEEKS and keep getting disconnected. Frustrating!

U NEED TO BE SUPER CAREFUL with these calculations!!! SSA made a HUGE error with my family's benefits and it took 9 MONTHS to fix!!!! They didn't automatically adjust my son's benefits when my spouse's went down due to work. We had to fight and fight and finally got a meeting with a technical expert who fixed it. DON'T ASSUME they'll do it right automatically!!!! Check your benefit amounts EVERY MONTH and if they don't increase when they should, CALL IMMEDIATELY!!!

To answer your follow-up question - I think it's definitely worth proactively calling SSA when your wife starts working to make sure they're aware of the situation. But honestly, what helped us most was keeping good records of all her earnings reports and confirmation numbers. That way, when the benefits didn't adjust properly, we had documentation showing we'd reported everything correctly.

One more thing I just thought of - the opensocialsecurity.com calculator is primarily designed for retirement benefit optimization, not necessarily for complex family benefit scenarios with disability benefits and earnings tests. That might be why it's not showing what you expect. For your specific situation with a DAC, I'd recommend using the SSA's own calculators or speaking directly with them for the most accurate information.