How 4 people can get SS til death based on 1 person's social security wages. [View all]

[dkf]

"Here’s some good news about divorce, for a change. If your marriage lasted at least ten years, you can claim social security benefits on the entire earnings history of your ex-spouse.

Those derivative benefits are equal to one-half of your ex-spouse’s benefits. It’s an either-or situation – you’ll get your own benefits, or the derivative benefits, whichever is greater. And collecting derivative benefits doesn’t reduce what your ex-spouse receives, or, if he’s remarried, what his current spouse receives.

Now, here are answers to three of the tricky social security questions we are often asked by readers:

1. How many ex-wives can claim derivative benefits?
As many exes as there are, as long as each marriage lasted 10 years.  Mickey Rooney’s seven ex-wives got left out, since none of the marriages lasted more than 10 years, but three of Johnny Carson’s marriages lasted over 10 years.

2. If my ex-spouse dies, do my derivative social security benefits end?
This has a good news, bad news answer. The bad news: If he dies, the derivative benefit ends. The good news is that now you can collect survivor benefits, which are 100% of his benefits, not just 50%."

http://www.wife.org/social-security-and-divorce.htm

This means if an individual had 2 marriages lasting over 10 years and is currently married, the exes, the current spouse, and the former worker can all collect based on the one wage. When the worker is alive there may be three persons collecting 50% of the benefit and one person collecting 100% of the benefit. If the main worker passes, there can then be 3 persons collecting 100% of the benefit.