Losing a spouse is an emotional and challenging experience, and it often brings financial concerns to the forefront. Social Security benefits can provide critical support to widows, helping them ...

Today's Social Security column addresses questions about how soon benefits may be available based on a new spouse's record, when divorced spousal benefits may be available and taking widow's benefits ...

Social Security isn’t one-size-fits-all. Learn how timing and personal circumstances affect payouts and what steps can lead ...

Cebotari Nicolai / Getty Images/iStockphoto My wife and I are celebrating our 49th wedding anniversary, although at our age, “celebrating” means maybe an extra scoop of ice cream on our next trip to ...

Q: I understand paying benefits to widows. But I don’t understand paying benefits to divorcees. A woman who is divorced is not a widow. She is an ex-wife. So why does she have a claim to her ...

She wasn’t due anything extra at the time because a divorced wife’s rate is way less than a divorced widow’s rate. So let this be a lesson to other readers out there. If you had a prior marriage, even ...

Over the 27 years I've been writing this column, I have probably written a hundred columns directed at divorced women. But after answering emails from men who had questions about benefits for ...

The payment of the one-time death payment is limited to a “spouse who was living with the deceased at the time of death.”(Jupiterimages / Getty Images) Q: My husband of 49 years died a few months ago.