No, but this would put someone like my cousin (who is late 30s and a widow with 2 kids) basically with worthless SS and all the money her husband paid in (decent paying job, major F/O equivalent) poof, gone, because she spent her 20s and 30s raising kids, like my mom did.

The system is ****ed, but yanking the carpet out from people who PAID in the money because their spouse dared die before age X is BS.

I worked overseas for years. My wife, because I would be gone for months on end, didn't have a high paying job but we sure as hell paid out the max on SS every year for me. She is over 40 now. But if I was like the majority of americans with very little retirement savings, giving her next to nothing based off of her years as a bartender and waitress while we as a family paid out the ass, maxiung out the SS tax every single year except my new hire year at Delta, and she would under a very minor tweak to your proposal, (42 vs 40 as the cutoff) get nothing.

Heck. No.

I paid that bloody money. It's a very crap return and I didn't have a choice, but why the heck should it not be paid out to my family.

Oh, you proposed I pay a tax on the work she did around the house?

GTFO.