What Are the Types of Social Security Benefits?

To get the full benefit calculated from your earnings record, you must wait until full retirement age, which is 67 for those born in 1960 or later. You can keep boosting your benefit by delaying your claim until 68, 69 or 70 — the age when you qualify for your biggest possible payment.

Family benefits

Congress passed amendments to the Social Security Act in 1939 that started the program’s evolution into what Roosevelt called “a system of old age and survivors’ insurance providing lifetime family security.”

In line with the gender roles of the time, the legislation provided benefits to the wives and widows of retired workers and to their children who were minors. Eligibility for male spouses would come later, as would benefits for divorced ex-spouses.

You may qualify for spouse benefits if you have been married for at least a year to someone who is receiving Social Security. In most cases, you must be 62 or older to receive spouse or ex-spouse benefits; there are exceptions if you are caring for children who are under 16 or have a disability.

These payments are intended to help families in which one spouse did not work, or did but earned significantly less than their mate. That’s reflected in the benefit calculation: The maximum spouse benefit is 50 percent of your spouse’s full retirement benefit, and if you’re eligible for a retirement benefit of your own that’s bigger, you’ll get that amount instead.

The rules are largely the same for divorced couples, although in this case, the marriage must have lasted at least 10 years. In some cases, you can get ex-spouse benefits if your ex has not yet filed for Social Security. But in all cases, you lose eligibility if you remarry.

Children can also receive family benefits amounting to up to half of a parent’s full retirement age benefit. In most cases, the child must be under 18, but there are exceptions for children who are still attending secondary school or have a disability that began before age 22.

About 2.8 million spouses, former spouses and children receive family benefits, accounting for 4 percent of Social Security recipients. The average monthly payment in March 2026 was $986 for a spouse or ex-spouse and $959 for children. These payments do not come out of the family breadwinner’s retirement benefit — they are additional household financial support.

Survivor benefits

The 1939 amendments also established survivor benefits for deceased workers’ wives, children who are minors and, in rare instances, parents. Over the years, survivor benefits became gender-neutral and expanded to cover divorced spouses.

In most cases, widowed spouses can begin collecting a survivor benefit as early as age 60. The minimum is 50 if the survivor has a disability, and the age rule may be waived if they are still caring for children from the marriage. You lose eligibility if you remarry before age 60 (50 if you have a disability).

Benefit amounts range from 71.5 to 100 percent of what the late spouse was receiving from Social Security (or would have been eligible to receive, if they died before claiming). The percentage depends on your age when you claim survivor benefits; you get 100 percent at full retirement age for survivors, which is between 66 and 67, depending on your year of birth. 

The rules on ages, payment amounts and remarriage are the same for surviving divorced spouses, but you must have been married to your ex for at least 10 years to claim survivor benefits on their earnings record. Receiving benefits as a surviving ex-spouse has no effect on survivor benefits paid to the widowed spouse, and vice versa. ​Children may receive up to 75 percent of what their late parent was getting (or would have been entitled to) from Social Security. Eligibility typically ends at age 18, but there are two exceptions:

• Children still enrolled in secondary school can continue receiving survivor benefits until they graduate from high school or reach age 19 and two months, whichever comes first. ​
• Adult children with a disability diagnosed before they turned 22 can continue to receive survivor benefits indefinitely.

Stepchildren who meet these criteria may also qualify in some situations. Regardless of their age or relationship to the late worker, child survivors typically lose eligibility for benefits if they get married.

About 5.8 million people, or 8 percent of all Social Security recipients, received survivor benefits in March 2026, with an average monthly payment of $1,624.

Disability benefits: SSDI and SSI

Congress added disability to the criteria for collecting Social Security in 1956 (it had been under discussion since the program’s inception in the ’30s). That legislation created Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), a monthly payment for people unable to work due to a serious medical condition.

A second form of disability benefit, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), was established in the 1970s. While SSI is managed by the Social Security Administration (SSA), it differs from SSDI in fundamental ways:

• SSDI is an earned benefit, funded by payroll taxes. As with retirement benefits, eligibility is based on work history, but the work time required to qualify depends on your age when your disability began. Social Security can pay benefits to the spouses and children of SSDI recipients. ​
• SSI is a safety-net benefit for people who have very low incomes and limited financial assets. It is funded out of general government revenue, not the dedicated Social Security tax, and eligibility is primarily based on financial need, not on whether you worked or for how long. It is also not limited to people determined by the SSA to have a qualifying disability; you can also receive SSI on the basis of age (65 or older).

The SSA uses the same medical criteria to determine whether a disability entitles an adult to SSDI or SSI (and it is possible to collect both). Your condition must be expected to last at least a year or result in death, and it must prevent you from doing most work. For both programs, your benefit can be reduced or your eligibility ended if you earn income that exceeds certain limits.

Nearly 7.1 million people received SSDI payments in March 2026, averaging about $1,634. About 1 million family members drew benefits on those workers’ records, averaging around $500 a month.

SSI payments are subject to an annually adjusted federal cap. In 2026, the maximum is $994 a month for an individual and $1,491 a month for a married couple in which both spouses qualify for the program. Nearly 7.4 million people receive SSI (including about 2.5 million who also receive a Social Security benefit); the average monthly SSI payment was $736 in March.

Can you collect more than one benefit?

You can qualify for more than one type of Social Security. For example, you might be eligible for a retirement or disability benefit based on your own work record and a survivor benefit based on a late spouse’s.

The SSA has a name for this: dual eligibility. But that doesn’t mean dual payments. If you qualify for more than one type of Social Security payment, you’ll get whichever amount is highest, not both combined.

The exception is Supplemental Security Income — because it is technically not part of Social Security, you can receive both an SSI payment and, say, a retirement or survivor benefit. But under the SSI income rules, your Social Security benefit could reduce how much you get from SSI.

The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarificration.