It is essential to note that lover and you will widow benefit statutes was in fact altered over the years
9 Brand new 1939 Personal Defense Amendments in the first place mainly based a spouse work for equivalent to that-50 % of this new resigned-employee advantageous asset of the current lover and you may good survivor's benefit equal to 3-fourths of the deceased wife or husband's employee work for. Experts had been stretched so you're able to separated widows with youngsters and you can mainly based widowers regarding 1950 amendments. When you look at the 1965, separated wives and you can thriving divorced spouses as opposed to visite su sitio pupils turned into eligible for payments, but there's an addiction and you can a great 20-seasons length of wedding needs. 10 Congress increased widow(er)s positives for the 1972 out-of 82.5 % of dry worker's advantage to 100 per cent (). When you look at the 1977, the length of relationships requirement is smaller regarding twenty years (240 months) so you can 10 years (120 months), and you will remarried female was basically allowed to discovered a typical survivor work with regarding the dead spouse's listing when your remarriage occurred once age sixty (age fifty when the handicapped).
Yet, Social Protection lover and widow benefits are still a major source of earnings having elderly women (Butrica, Iams, and you can Sandell 1999; Favreault, Sam; Harrington Meyer, Wolf, and you may Himes 2006; Weaver 1997).