There are several key factors that make you eligible for Social Security benefits and help determine the amount of money you are due. One of the most important is your date of birth. Because you have to be a precise age to qualify for retirement benefits (e.g., 66 for full benefits or 62 for reduced benefits), you have to prove your date of birth to the Social Security Administration.
When I started working for SSA back in the early 1970s, this wasn’t always a simple process. Many people retiring back then (these would have been folks born in the early 1900s) did not have a birth certificate. And I don’t mean they lost it or couldn’t find it. I mean their birth was never recorded in official government records. So we had to resort to creative ways to help people prove their date of birth. For example, we would search church, school or census records.
It’s a different story today. Almost everyone eligible for Social Security at this point in the 21st century was born at a time when births were routinely recorded with local, county or state government agencies. So providing a birth certificate to SSA is usually a fairly routine matter.
But today’s questions concern date-of-birth issues that are not necessarily so routine.
Q: I always thought I was born on Jan. 1, 1955. And that’s what my birth certificate shows. But I was just told a very interesting story by a very old aunt — my mother’s sister. She told me that I was actually born on the night of Dec. 31, 1954 — just a few minutes before midnight. She said that the hospital administrators in the small town in Nebraska where I was born, in secret collusion with my mother, fudged the hour and date of birth on my birth certificate in order to make it appear that I was born in the first couple minutes of Jan. 1, 1955. I thus became the first baby of the new year in our town. Apparently, the hospital got some much-needed publicity for their newly established birthing clinic, and my parents got several prizes from local merchants. My aunt told me that my mother was so embarrassed by her actions that she never told anyone except her sister (my aunt) this story. My mom took this secret to her grave! What are the Social Security ramifications of this?
A: Wow! What a fascinating story. And that’s all it is — at least for now — just a story. Your official birth certificate shows you were born on Jan. 1, 1955, and that is what SSA is going to use as your date of birth in its records.
Actually, there are a couple of advantages to being born one year earlier — in your case, in 1954. One has to do with your full retirement age — the age at which you would be eligible for 100 percent of your retirement benefit. For people born in 1954, that age is 66. But for people born in 1955, it is 66 and two months.
The other has to do with Social Security’s retirement benefit formula. It is way too complicated to explain in the short space of this column, but being born in 1954 would mean a few extra bucks in your monthly Social Security retirement check. Take my word for it.
So normally I would suggest that you think about trying to get your birthdate changed by contacting the registrar in the county or state where your birth certificate resides. (It is doubtful they would amend your birth record based on your aunt’s allegation alone.)
But because of a strange little twist in the law, you don’t have to worry about that. And the twist says that you attain your legal age on the day preceding your birthday. For most of us, that has no consequences. I was born on June 22, and the fact that I legally attain my age on June 21 is meaningless.
But it is full of meaning — at least for Social Security purposes — if you were born on the 1st. For example, Sue was born on Sept. 1, 1952, and wants her benefits to start when she turns 66 in September of this year. She actually can get a check for August because she legally turns 66 on Aug. 31.
And it is extra meaningful if you were born on Jan. 1, as in your case. Your birth certificate shows you were born Jan. 1, 1955, but you legally attain your age on Dec. 31, 1954. So you are going to get all the Social Security advantages of being born in 1954 even though your birth certificate shows you were born in 1955. Weird, huh?
Q: I always thought I was born on Nov. 22, 1952. That is the date I always have used, and it is in my Social Security records. I am now in the process of getting my paperwork together to file for Social Security this year. Imagine my shock when I got my birth certificate and it shows I was born Nov. 21, 1952. How will I explain this to the Social Security people?
A: You will explain it to them the way you just did to me. It’s no big deal. The difference in the day of birth (unless it happens to be the first of the month) is meaningless for Social Security purposes.
Q: My 84-year-old father just died. We just got his death certificate, and we were surprised to learn that it lists his date of birth as Jan. 22, 1933. But all of his life, we thought he was born on Jan. 22, 1934. After talking to my mother, we were shocked to learn that dad had some problems in his early years and may have somehow messed up his date of birth on official records, including Social Security records. Is this glitch going to cause any problems when my mom tries to claim widow’s benefits on dad’s account?
A: As I explained at the beginning of this column, SSA is pretty meticulous about establishing the correct date of birth when someone applies for Social Security benefits. In other words, when your dad first signed up for his Social Security, they would have secured some kind of birth record that proved he was born on Jan. 22, 1934.
I have no idea why his death certificate shows he was born in 1933. But it’s a moot point. Your mother’s widow’s benefits will not be affected by that little glitch.
