LGBT Survivor SSI Benefits Granted
- Author: Jeffrey Simmons
- Posted: 2024-05-10
There is some very good news for LGBT seniors over 65 years of age who have lost a spouse. You are now entitled to apply for and receive survivors' benefits. Generally speaking, these are Social Security benefits given out to a surviving partner, in instances where bills were shared between the couple. So, for instance, for married couples who were both listed on a mortgage, shared a joint bank account, etc, the government pays a portion of the deceased's Social Security income (SSI) to the surviving spouse, so that they do not suffer from being unable to pay those bills. Since these senior benefits started up some decades ago, members of the LGBT community were always denied, even if they were legally a couple through a civil union. Though even after same-sex marriage became legal in 2015, survivors' benefits still weren't given out to members of the LGBT community.
In general, these benefits are typically about 70% of the deceased's SSI. So, in other words, if your partner was receiving $1000/month from the government, the benefit should be $700. It's very easy to apply for these benefits. Just go to the Social Security (gov) website and find the appropriate option. You should be able to apply in a matter of minutes. After that, you're going to receive a phone call from your local SS agency, and they're going to ask questions about your income, the previous shared bills, and they will require proof of the marriage and the shared bills. Though while LGBT seniors are able to apply now, these benefits can still be tricky to receive.
Survivor Benefits Are Never Guaranteed
Much like any sort of insurance you purchase, the government goes pretty far out of its way to not pay these benefits out to anyone. Of course, LGBT seniors have always been denied, but well over half of all spouses have been denied historically. The government actually investigates these cases individually and they look like hawks for discrepancies in banking information, etc. They also are very much sticklers for surviving spouses who have basic jobs. If you make even around $15,000 per year, the American government considers this to be too much money to draw survivors' benefits. It seems insane, but these are very tricky benefits to get. Millions of surviving spouses have had to quit their jobs just to get these benefits, which keeps them in poverty.
So just be aware that you're not at all guaranteed to receive these benefits, even though you are eligible now.
Just Blame Donald Trump
There are a lot of LGBT seniors who have been very angry over SSI survivor benefits not being granted to them for a long time, and so the media's plan to quell their frustrations is pretty simple: Just blame it all on Donald Trump, or the 'former guy' as the corporate media call him. The fact, however, is that these benefits were not available under former President Obama either, even though that's when same-sex marriage became legal in all 50 states. Barack Obama did nothing about this issue, though you would never hear the media blame him. Furthermore, civil unions were a thing going back to Bill Clinton, and he never addressed this issue as President, nor did George W. Bush. The federal government in general has dropped the ball on this. The only reason they're changing this now, realistically, is that they're expanding SSI for illegal immigrants.
So while it's definitely a boon for LGBT senior survivors to be getting these benefits, understand that there was no specific bill in Congress to make this happen. The only reason this is happening is that the government has decided to spend another trillion'plus on SSI every year for a wider pool of people, because the Biden administration believes that the American government should be funding the lives of all people. And so as a result, LGBT seniors became eligible for survivor benefits. Which is great news, of course; the point, however, is that the media wants to gaslight you into believing that Trump specifically denied these sorts of benefits, when the fact is that it was just never on the government's agenda, regardless of who was president.
If you are a senior members of the LGBT community who needs these benefits, please read the SS website carefully and apply with honest financial information.
