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Social Security Survivors Benefits: The Effects of Reproductive Pathways and Intestacy Law on Attitudes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Jason D. Hans  and
Martie Gillen
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Extract

According to the Social Security Administration, 98% of minor children are eligible to receive survivors benefits if a working parent dies. However, the eligibility of children born, and even conceived, after a working parent dies is less clear. In recent years, the Social Security Administration has received more than 100 applications for survivors benefits filed on behalf of children conceived after a parent's death, and one such case, Astrue v. Capato, was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012. In that case, whether the child is eligible to inherit under state intestacy law was accepted as a reasonable — and is a common — approach for determining eligibility for Social Security survivors benefits. The purpose of this study is to examine attitudes concerning access to Social Security survivors benefits (hereafter referred to as survivors benefits) in the context of various reproductive pathways and varying state intestacy laws.

Type
Independent
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , Summer 2013 , pp. 514 - 524
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2013

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