Hi!

I'm Spanish and I'm married to an American citizen. We are living in Colorado and I have a US resident card and a social security number. As he has been working for the government, if he dies before me as I am his wife I will receive a widow pension from the government. The thing is that we are thinking about moving back to Spain next fall to live there permanently and I guess I will then lost my resident card and I guess my US social security number too??... then, how I would be able in the future to collect the widow pension without a social security number??... do you need it to collect it??...I hope it never happens, but just wondering if in the future I find myself in that situation how it works here in the US... do you need to be a US resident and have a social security number to collect a widow pension?

thanks,

RubyPitbull

Hola hola32!

You pose an interesting problem. I do know that once you have a social security number, it is yours for life. Moving to another country doesn't mean you lose it. But, I don't know if you are not an American Citizen and you are living in another country, whether or not you will still be able to collect on your husband's social security. If he has a pension plan from his job, if you are named the beneficiary, you will receive that. It doesn't matter where you live.

I think the best thing that you can do is to call the Social Security Administration and find out what your options are. All it might take is for you to follow through and get your U.S. Citizenship. If your husband works for the government, you probably should talk to him about your concerns. He could ask someone in his Human Resources Department what you both can do to ensure that you will receive his social security if something should happen to him. In any event, here is the link to the Social Security Administration. At the top of the web page, there is a link to contact them.

Social Security Online

hola32

Hola RubyPitbull!!

Thank you very much for your clear and helpful answer!, very nice of you!:-)

We thought about the the citizenship option but the problem is that me being Spanish can't have a dual citizenship cause in Spain they don't recognize the dual citizenship with US and once you take it you lose the Spanish one (stupid but true) and I can't do that as we want to move to Spain and I have family there etc... The other problem is that if we move to Spain for good I know I will lose my permanent resident card as they don't let you live outside of the US for more than one year (I think that to keep it you have to be living here at least six months a year) and as I don't know how laws work here I was wondering if not having a resident card anymore they would let me keep my social security number (I have the feeling the answer is no)... I love this country (plus is the country of my husband and all his family lives here) and I wish I could find any solution but Spanish laws are very strict about dual citizenship but I kind of gave up the idea of a solution about that .... so that's why I was wondering about the widow pension as here in the States they do everything through your social security number...

Anyway, as you said the best idea is probably to contact the Social Security and ask them about all my concerns...

Thank you very much!!!