Here is a special message to all Social Security representatives reading this column. You are right when you tell customers that as a general rule, they cannot file for reduced benefits on one record and later switch to full benefits on another record. But if you are talking to a widow or widower, that rule does not apply.

I’ve heard from four readers in the past couple weeks — three widows and one widower — who were all told they must choose to take benefits on one record or another. And once they make that choice, they can’t change. And that’s absolutely wrong. Widows and widowers have the option of taking reduced benefits on one record and later switching to higher benefits on another record. And the number of readers telling me they’ve been misinformed about this issue (the four people I heard from this week is just the tip of the iceberg) tells me this isn’t a few isolated incidents involving a few uninformed Social Security Administration reps. Something must be missing in the SSA’s training sessions because I’ve heard from hundreds of widows and widowers over the years who have been misled on this topic.

Before I explain this “widow(er)s option,” let me clarify the statement I made at the beginning of this column. The one where I said that as a general rule, people can’t file for reduced benefits on one record and later switch to full benefits on another record. Actually, a version of this happens quite a lot. So let me explain what I am talking about with examples.

Let’s say Wilma is 62 and her husband Fred is also 62. Wilma wants to take her smallish Social Security benefit now, but Fred wants to wait until he is 67 to file for his much larger benefit. Wilma can take reduced retirement benefits now. And then when Fred turns 67 and files for his Social Security, Wilma can file for spousal benefits on his record. But the reduction she took in her own Social Security will carry over to her spousal benefits. In other words, she won’t get full spousal benefits. She’ll get a reduced rate.

But now let me turn the example around a bit. Let’s once again say that Wilma is 62, but this time we’ll say that Fred is 68 and already getting his own higher retirement benefit. In this case, Wilma cannot take reduced retirement benefits on her own record now and later switch to higher full spousal benefits on Fred’s record. By the same token, she cannot take reduced spousal benefits on Fred’s account now and later switch to full benefits on her own record.

So what’s the difference in the two examples. In the second one, Fred is already getting Social Security when Wilma wants to file for benefits. And there is a rule that says when you file for one benefit, you must file for all other benefits you are due at the same time. In the first example, when Wilma turned 62, Fred wasn’t yet getting benefits so at that time, there were no other benefits (i.e., spousal benefits) for Wilma to file for. That’s why, later on, when Fred files for his Social Security, Wilma can then file for extra spousal benefits on his record.

It’s that “you must file for all other benefits you are due at the same time” rule that does not apply to widows and widowers.

Let’s go back to Wilma, who is turning 62. And this time, we’ll say that Fred is dead. In other words, Wilma is a widow. If Wilma went to some Social Security offices and talked to the uninformed SSA reps I mentioned earlier, she would have been told something like this. “Wilma, because of the rule that says you must file for any and all benefits you are due, you must file for your own reduced retirement benefit now, and you must file for any extra reduced widow’s benefits you are due at the same time.”

But to repeat: That “you must file for any and all benefits you are due at the same time” rule does not apply to widows and widowers.

Once again, let’s go back to Wilma. Let’s say her own full retirement age benefit is $1,800 per month and that Fred’s full retirement age benefit is $3,000 per month. Wilma might want to consider filing for reduced retirement benefits at age 62. She’d get about 70% of $1,800 or $1,260 per month. Then once she reaches her full retirement age, she could switch to 100% widow’s benefits, or $3,000 per month. (There are no “delayed retirement credits” paid on a widow’s benefit, so there would be no advantage to waiting past her full retirement age to collect widow’s benefits.)

Now let’s turn things around a bit and say that Wilma’s own benefit is close to Fred’s. For example, we can say that her full retirement age benefit is $2,800 per month and that Fred’s FRA benefit was $3,000 per month. In this case, Wilma might want to start out with reduced widow’s benefits. At 62, she’d get about 82% of Fred’s FRA benefit, or about $2,460 per month. Wilma could collect those benefits until she reaches her full retirement age, at which point she could switch to 100% of her FRA benefit, or $2,800 per month.

Or if she could live on her reduced widow’s benefit a little longer, she could wait until age 70 and get roughly a 30% “delayed retirement credit” added to her monthly benefits. That means she’d get $3,640 per month starting at age 70.

Of course, Wilma isn’t forced to employ this “widow’s option.” Go back to the example where her own FRA benefit was $1,800 and her widow’s FRA benefit was $3,000. She could choose to forgo this “widow’s option” stuff and simply file for widow’s benefits now. In other words, at age 62, she’d be due about 82% of $3,000, or $2,460 per month. And that would be her benefit for good, except for future cost-of-living increases.

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If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has two books with all the answers. One is called “Social Security — Simple and Smart: 10 Easy-to-Understand Fact Sheets That Will Answer All Your Questions About Social Security.” The other is “Social Security: 100 Myths and 100 Facts.” You can find the books at Amazon.com or other book outlets. Or you can send him an email at thomas.margenau@comcast.net. To find out more about Tom Margenau and to read past columns and see features from other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.