From Business Insider Personal Finance:
Anthony Gonzales and Mark Johnson were married at the Bernalillo County Clerk's Office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, alongside more than 100 other LGBTQ+ couples, on August 27, 2013.
Same-sex marriage was legalized statewide in New Mexico in December 2013 — and was legalized nationwide on June 26, 2015 by the Supreme Court — however, some local county clerks in New Mexico began issuing marriage licenses to LGBTQ+ couples as early as August 2013, arguing that New Mexico's definition of marriage made no mention of sex or gender. …
Johnson died on February 19, 2014, six months after he legally married Gonzales at the county clerk's office. …
When he turned 60 in 2015, one year after Mark's death, Gonzales was let go from his job. He applied for survivor benefits, Social Security benefits that widows and widowers get when their spouse dies. …
Gonzales was denied survivor benefits three weeks after he sent his application. He says, "I got a letter saying, 'Sorry, but you weren't married the required nine months.' And I was like, 'Well, how could we fulfill that requirement when we could not get married?" …
In May 2021, the US District Court of Arizona ruled in favor of … same-sex couples who had been denied survivor benefits. According to records reviewed by Insider, Gonzales started receiving $1,700 a month in survivor benefits starting May 2021, along with $90,000 in backpay for the years he was denied benefits. …
5 comments:
Would the same logic apply to GPO or WEP? Los Angeles County withdrew in the early 80s. "How could I pay into SSA when my employer withdrew?"
No, it wouldn't. The situations are not even remotely comparable.
Regarding coverage issues, every state has a master agreement it maintains with SSA under Section 218 of the Social Security Act. That agreement defines whether or not each of the different jobs under the various political subdivisions of the State are covered under Social Security. In your case, your state Social Security Administrator (who is CalPERS in California) obviously determined that your particular subdivision of LA County employees were not covered under Social Security.
Thus, your issue is not with SSA (or the Federal Government), but rather with CalPERS in Sacramento.
https://www.calpers.ca.gov/docs/forms-publications/official-state-social-security-administrator-for-california-public-employers.pdf
Mr. Gonzales, on the other hand, had a legitimate Constitutional issue that prevented him from marrying his significant other.
Trust me, his issue was a much more serious legal issue than yours.
No. This is due to same-sex marriage being held as unconstitutional. Congress had the chance to remedy after Windsor, but balked. So the courts "legislated" (loosely) and established criteria for SSA to use.
An employee was not barred from participating in Social Security because of unconstitutional law.
If I recall correctly this is the second of this type I've seen on here. What I can't figure out is why they are not documenting that the 9 month rule could not be met since there was a legal impediment and allowing the claim. Seems there must be some bad (or intentional) instructions on that subject in these cases and since they are handled by special staff, you keep getting the same denial for the 9 month rule.
@10:51
My suspicion is that SSA concluded there was no legal impediment since the clerks in New Mexico started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples prior to it being specifically legalized in New Mexico. Regardless, happy it worked out.
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