Dear Rusty: My husband of 21 years died in January 2022 at the age of 70. We were both retired at the time of his death, and they immediately stopped his Social Security payments. After many calls to Social Security asking why I was not receiving his benefits, I was finally told since I have my own pension from the State of Ohio that I would receive none of my husband’s Social Security.I cannot see why my OH retirement has anything to do with my husband’s Social Security. I do get a small payment from SS based on my past earnings before I worked for the State of Ohio. Is there any chance of fighting this since we were married when they took money from his earnings for SS? If I wanted to write to an elected official to see if these rules could be changed, who would I write to or call? Signed: Upset Widow Dear Upset Widow: Unfortunately, your entitlement to a Social Security survivor benefit from your husband is affected by a provision known as the Government Pension Offset, or “GPO,” which affects any surviving spouse with a federal, state, or local government pension earned without contributing to the Social Security program. Ohio is one of 26 states which have opted not to participate in Social Security, thus exempting state employees from paying Social Security taxes on their earnings. The OH state pension which resulted from your state employment means that any Social Security benefits earned outside of your state employment are reduced. The GPO reduction to your survivor benefit is severe – a reduction by 2/3rds of the amount of your Ohio state pension, which can - and often does - completely eliminate any SS survivor benefit you might otherwise be entitled to.For clarity, the monthly SS payment your husband was receiving at his death stops automatically. At that point, your eligibility for additional SS benefits from your husband was assessed and, because of the GPO, Social Security offset your potential survivor benefit from your husband by 2/3rds of your Ohio state pension, which apparently eliminated your survivor benefit. As unfair as this may seem to you, note that the same thing happens to any surviving spouse who also has their own earned SS retirement benefit – their personal SS retirement benefit offsets their SS survivor benefit, so a spouse with a regular SS retirement benefit ...
