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.

Let me guess, you are single and under 35, otherwise just a total *******. I am willing to bet you haven't spent a day raising kids if you think someone who stays at home raising them shouldn't get access to their spouses SS. You do realize that often times it's the very fact that someone "isnt" working that allows the other to go into a higher paying job, which in turn allows them to pay more into the system? I couldn't do what I do if my spouse didnt stay at home.

I hate our system of SS as well and think it needs a rework but I dont think we should punish people that have been paying in and now because of some fluke they lose it. Lets make it a mandatory thing but allow us to place it into private investments or mutual funds.

Their are lots of flaws, my friends parents both worked and both paid and both died in their late 50s.

The law doesn’t actually require you to have kids to be stay at home and collect SS. It also doesn’t require you to be a woman, you can be a stay at home dad with no kids and STILL get SS and when it runs out no one is looking at you.

In your stories these peoples lives are not concluded, how can you say they would never pay their 40 credits, or 10 years by the time they are 67? If they make it to 67 without a spouse and never paid 40 credits of social security you are leaving a significant amount of info out of the story.

40 was a number because young people have different options available especially working from home, or Uber Eats type jobs, so move it down to 35.

Older generations go with a she shouldn’t have to argument but younger ones will have to go with she can’t. The money is running out, literally.

My thoughts as well; I've never counted on seeing a dime in returns.

Easy for high earners like us to poo-poo it though; it's incredibly important to tens of millions of old people...who vote.

It's a 3rd rail of US politics for a reason, which is why I expect it to survive in some shape or form for a very long time.

(Just not for us)

Both my grandmas worked before, during, and after WW2, my mom is a baby boomer worked her whole life, my wife works, my sisters work, my wife’s sisters work.

Don’t know any stay at home moms who are children of baby boomers.

I am not, it’s just that most women today under 35 work, the only ones that don’t are wealthy enough not too.

The rest of couples in America with kids still both work.

A women claiming her spouses SS will eventually convert from the norm, to only wealthy women claiming it. All the non wealthy women worked and paid their own.

Think airline pilot wife vs wife who married cop and was a teacher.

The one with the free lunch is the millionaire, and the one who can’t double dip off their own and their spouse is not wealthy.

It’s just an idea that if someone has to not get paid because their isn’t enough money, it should be the people who A did not pay, and B likely more in the future they are wealthy and that’s why they didn’t pay.

Because in my mom's case, she had been a SAHM for 30 years (I was the youngest, by a lot), and right after my dad died she got cancer. But hey, she totally could have worked enough to get $800 a month or less, (min benefit is comically low, sub $50 a month) or you know, the $2800ish my dad earned then died too young to collect.

My mom also live in a very rural area. You aren't even gonna break even driving for Uber Eats after driving 50 miles to the nearest place that uses it.

But hey, Opie probably wants that money earmarked for something else special to him. I don't plan on seeing a dime of it, but I paid in. My wife should get $3600ish a month if I keel over before retirement, but per Opie he has better uses for that cash. She should have worked outside the home versus running the home so I could go make $$ and max out my social security benefit.

It would be very interesting to learn more about you background so I could understand how you come to such a conclusion??

My mom worked, my wife’s mom worked, my wife works, my grandmas both worked before, during and after WW2, sisters work, wife’s sisters work, wife’s grandmas worked, All men worked. all aunts all work, wife’s aunts all work.
My parents aunts on both sides all worked.

Very simple, no personal experience with women that don’t work. A few kids in highshool mom’s didn’t, most did.

Jobs I can remember are state employment, X-ray tech, nurse, accountant, college admin, state employment, nurse, dental hygienist, librarian, campground manager, paralegal