Social Security for Children: How to Get Benefits

Social Security is usually for people who are retired or suffering from a disability. But under certain circumstances, children can be entitled to Social Security benefits as well. But you have to understand the rules that apply to children’s benefits under Social Security.

In the following video, Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool’s director of investment planning, talks about the requirements for children to get Social Security benefits. First, Dan notes that a child must generally be unmarried and under the age of 18 to be eligible for benefits. But there are exceptions for high-school students who are age 18 or 19, and older disabled children can also remain entitled to Social Security benefits as well. Dan also points out that children can be eligible for half of a parent’s retirement or disability benefit during the parent’s lifetime, or 75% after the parent dies. But there’s a family maximum for Social Security benefits that can kick in to limit children’s benefits, with families with multiple children often seeing benefits reduced substantially.

var FoolAnalyticsData = FoolAnalyticsData || []; FoolAnalyticsData.push({ eventType: “ArticlePitch”, contentByline: “Dan Caplinger”, contentId: “cms.135233”, contentTickers: “”, contentTitle: “Social Security for Children: How to Get Benefits”, hasVideo: “True”, pitchId: “692”, pitchTickers: “”, pitchTitle: “”, pitchType: “”, sfrId: “” });

The article Social Security for Children: How to Get Benefits originally appeared on Fool.com.

var ord = window.ord || Math.floor(Math.random() * 1e16);
document.write(‘x3Cscript type=”text/javascript” src=”http://ad.doubleclick.net/N3910/adj/usdf.df.articles/articles;sz=5×7;ord=’ + ord + ‘?”x3ex3C/scriptx3e’);

Dan Caplinger and The Motley Fool have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2014 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

(function(c,a){window.mixpanel=a;var b,d,h,e;b=c.createElement(“script”);
b.type=”text/javascript”;b.async=!0;b.src=(“https:”===c.location.protocol?”https:”:”http:”)+
‘//cdn.mxpnl.com/libs/mixpanel-2.2.min.js’;d=c.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];
d.parentNode.insertBefore(b,d);a._i=[];a.init=function(b,c,f){function d(a,b){
var c=b.split(“.”);2==c.length&&(a=a[c[0]],b=c[1]);a[b]=function(){a.push([b].concat(
Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments,0)))}}var g=a;”undefined”!==typeof f?g=a[f]=[]:
f=”mixpanel”;g.people=g.people||[];h=[‘disable’,’track’,’track_pageview’,’track_links’,
‘track_forms’,’register’,’register_once’,’unregister’,’identify’,’alias’,’name_tag’,
‘set_config’,’people.set’,’people.increment’];for(e=0;e<h.length;e++)d(g,h[e]);
a._i.push([b,c,f])};a.__SV=1.2;})(document,window.mixpanel||[]);
mixpanel.init(“9659875b92ba8fa639ba476aedbb73b9”);

function addEvent(obj, evType, fn, useCapture){
if (obj.addEventListener){
obj.addEventListener(evType, fn, useCapture);
return true;
} else if (obj.attachEvent){
var r = obj.attachEvent(“on”+evType, fn);
return r;
}
}

addEvent(window, “load”, function(){new FoolVisualSciences();})
addEvent(window, “load”, function(){new PickAd();})

var themeName = ‘dailyfinance.com’;
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push([‘_setAccount’, ‘UA-24928199-1’]);
_gaq.push([‘_trackPageview’]);

(function () {

var ga = document.createElement(‘script’);
ga.type = ‘text/javascript’;
ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;

var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();