Surviving members of same-sex couples who weren’t able to marry because it wasn’t yet legal may be newly eligible for survivor benefits from Social Security.
Even after winning the right to marry across the United States more than six years ago, some same-sex couples have faced challenges accessing certain benefits.
To qualify for survivor benefits, for example, couples need to have been married for at least nine months. But some survivors lost their spouses before meeting that threshold, even though they legalized their unions as soon as they were eligible.
Others died before they were able to marry at all. Recent developments ensure that both groups of survivors — those who were able to marry and those who were not — will be permitted to.