Decision Tree Insurance

Category: Social Security

Why Your Widow and Kids Won’t Each Get a Full Check

Stick-figure infographic showing how the Social Security family maximum can reduce combined survivor benefits for a spouse and two children below the total suggested by their individual percentages.

Your spouse can get up to 100% of your benefit. Each of your kids can get up to 75%. Add that up for a family of four, and it looks like Social Security would replace nearly triple your income if you died. It won’t. A separate rule — the family maximum — caps what your […]

Social Security’s Death Benefit Hasn’t Changed Since the 1950s. It’s $255.

Stick-figure infographic explaining the Social Security $255 death benefit and when savings, survivor benefits, or term life insurance may be the better solution.

You’re not wrong to be confused: Social Security’s $255 death benefit hasn’t moved since 1954. But whether that number should worry you has less to do with inflation than with three things — what’s in your accounts, whether you have kids, and who’s counting on your paycheck. Here’s how to tell which one is your […]

Does Social Security Use Your Last Salary or Highest Years?

Stick-figure infographic showing how Social Security survivor benefits for a worker who dies before 62 can exclude low-earning years and use fewer than 35 computation years.

Social Security doesn’t calculate your family’s survivor benefit off your last salary. It doesn’t even use a flat 35 years, no matter what you’ve read. It uses your highest-earning years — and for anyone who dies before 62, the number of years it counts shrinks along with your age. That single fact is why two […]

Social Security Survivor Benefit Stops at Age 16, Not 18

infographic showing that a Social Security mother’s or father’s survivor benefit stops when the youngest child turns 16, while the child’s own survivor benefit continues.

There’s a Social Security survivor benefit that disappears years before most families expect it to — and it isn’t your child’s. It’s yours. If you’re the surviving parent caring for a child under 16, your own monthly check ends on their 16th birthday, even though their own benefit keeps coming until 18 or 19. This […]

Are Social Security Survivor Benefits Means-Tested? What Actually Sets the Amount

infographic showing that Social Security survivor benefits are based on the deceased worker’s earnings record, not the survivor’s savings, 401(k), home, or inheritance.

Turn on the news and you’ll hear Social Security described as an entitlement, or grouped in with government assistance programs. That framing has done real damage, because it leaves people believing their benefits somehow depend on how much they need them. They don’t. Social Security is a national insurance program, and you’ve been paying the […]

How Social Security Survivor Benefits Should Shape Your Life Insurance Number

Four-step diagram showing how Social Security calculates a survivor benefit: full percentages, family maximum cap, earnings test, then reapportionment among remaining beneficiaries.

If you’re trying to figure out how much Social Security a surviving spouse and kids actually get, the real answer is better than most people assume — and more complicated than any single percentage can tell you. Social Security pays genuinely meaningful benefits to a surviving spouse raising children. But like most things involving the […]

Your Disability Claim Could Pay Your Kids Too — But There’s a Catch

infographic showing how SSDI benefits for children are shared under the family maximum when one, two, or three children qualify.

You’ve been approved for SSDI. Somewhere in the process, someone mentioned your kids might qualify too — up to 50% of your benefit, each. That’s real. For a family with one child on the record, it’s a meaningful addition to your household income, built entirely into the protection you already earned through years of payroll […]

How to Appeal a Denied SSDI Claim: The 4-Step Process

infographic showing how to appeal an SSDI denial through reconsideration, an ALJ hearing, Appeals Council review, and federal court.

You did everything right. You applied, you waited, and the letter still said no. Now you’re staring down a 60-day clock, wondering if appealing is even worth it — or if this is just how it goes for everyone. If you didn’t know this already: the system that took months to deny you is the […]

Why Mental Health SSDI Claims Get Denied More (And What Helps)

infographic explaining why SSDI mental health claims may be denied and what medical evidence and documentation can strengthen a claim.

If you’ve been denied SSDI for depression, anxiety, PTSD, or another mental health condition, you’re not imagining that the bar felt higher than it should have been. It is. Research on disability claims has found denial rates for mood and anxiety disorders running well above the program’s overall average at the initial application stage. That’s […]