Thousands of widows and widowers were underpaid Social Security benefits after a mistake by the Social Security Administration, costing surviving spouses more than $50 million combined, according to a new federal watchdog report.
The findings show that agency staff failed to properly calculate survivor benefits for an estimated 8,618 widows and widowers, resulting in average losses of about $5,800 per person. On top of that, the report found another problem that thousands more beneficiaries could have benefited from clear guidance.
Social Security survivor benefits are a financial lifeline for millions of widows and widowers, many of whom rely on their monthly checks to cover basic needs like housing, food, and medical care.
When payments are calculated incorrectly, even by a few hundred dollars a year, the impact can be severe, especially for those already facing financial insecurity. Here’s what to know about survivor benefits, who was affected by the miscalculation, what Social Security is doing about it now, and how widows and widowers can check whether they are owed additional funds.
What To Know
According to the Inspector General, the errors occurred when Social Security employees failed to apply a required calculation known as the Widow(er)s Indexing Computation, or WINDEX, when manually processing some survivor claims.
WINDEX affects how a deceased worker’s earnings are adjusted, which can increase or decrease the Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) or the baseline figure used to determine monthly benefits. When that calculation was applied incorrectly or skipped, surviving spouses received smaller monthly payments than they were entitled to.
Who Was Affected
The underpayments primarily affected widows and widowers whose spouses died before age 62 and survivors whose cases required manual processing, where calculation errors were more likely.
The Inspector General estimated that nearly 40 percent of surviving spouses may have been affected by similar errors during the period reviewed.
Experts say widows and widowers are already among the poorest groups of older Americans, making even modest benefit reductions especially damaging.
“Social Security is supposed to step up when a spouse passes, allowing the surviving spouse to move into a higher benefit. But this has long been a manual process, and in too many cases, it was done wrong,” Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek. “That is not a minor error, and is real income people rely on, especially during one of the most difficult periods of their lives.”
Unclear Guidance from the SSA
The report found another troubling issue: thousands of widows and widowers may have lost even more money by receiving incomplete or unclear guidance from the SSA about when and how to claim benefits.
Auditors estimated that 5,367 widows and widowers could have received about $114 million more in benefits if they had been properly informed about delaying retirement claims while first collecting survivor benefits.
In those cases, early claiming locked beneficiaries into permanently lower payments, costing an average of more than $21,000 per person.
“While situations like this may only affect a few thousand, the associated concerns behind it for millions of other beneficiaries are widespread,” Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek. “With affordability being a top issue for millions of America’s seniors, they want to make sure the amount they receive from Social Security each month is correct. Mistakes like these cause doubts at a time when for beneficiaries every dollar counts.”
What Social Security Is Doing Now
The Inspector General recommended that the SS identify affected widows and widowers and issue retroactive payments where underpayments occurred.
It also said the SSA should improve training and documentation to ensure beneficiaries are fully informed of all filing options.
Newsweek reached out to the SSA for comment via email. The SSA previously acknowledged the findings and said it plans to take corrective action.
What Affected Beneficiaries Can Do
Widows and widowers who believe they may have been underpaid should contact the SSA and ask for a review of their survivor benefit calculation, specifically whether WINDEX was applied correctly and whether they received full information about filing options.
If an error is found, beneficiaries can request back pay for underpaid benefits.
You should have several key documents ready for this: your spouse’s death certificate, marriage certificate, Social Security numbers for both spouses and claiming history or benefit notices.
If your issue is not resolved, you should file a formal reconsideration, contact a local SSA office and potentially seek help from a congressional representative’s constituent services office.
“The broader issue is what this says about the SSA system as a whole. This is not new. The agency has struggled with accuracy, communication, and consistency for years,” Thompson said. “From misapplied credits to incorrect guidance, people are often making decisions based on flawed information. And when it comes to something as foundational as Social Security, close enough is not good enough.”
What Happens Next
The Social Security Administration is expected to review the Inspector General’s findings and identify widows and widowers who were underpaid due to calculation errors.
However, experts say surviving spouses should not wait for automatic corrections.
Widows and widowers who believe they may have been impacted are encouraged to contact the SSA directly to request a benefit review, particularly if their spouse died before age 62 or if their survivor benefits were manually processed.
