If a parent you were married to dies before your child’s benefit ends, the benefit is increased. Image: Billion Photos/Shutterstock.com
In my last two articles, I wrote about the survivor annuities provided to the spouses of deceased federal employees and retirees. Now I want to spell out the benefits that the children of deceased federal employees and retirees are entitled to.
The children’s survivor benefit is a dollar amount that is payable to your child or children. To be eligible for that benefit, your child must be an unmarried dependent and under age 18 years of age. The term dependent also includes:
• an adopted child,
• a stepchild, but only if the stepchild lived with you in a regular parent-child relationship), and
• a child who lived with you and for whom a petition for adoption was filed by you and who is adopted by your surviving spouse after your death.
The age limit is waived if your child is either:
• between 18 and 22 years of age, unmarried, dependent on you, and a student regularly pursuing a full-time course of study or training, or
• is incapable of self-support because of a mental or physical disability incurred before age 18, as long as he or she remains both incapable of self-support or unmarried.
If the child has a living parent who was married to the employee or retiree, in 2023 the benefit payable is the lesser of:
• $635 per month per child, or
• $1,905 per month divided by the number of eligible children
If the child doesn’t have a living parent who was married to the employee or retiree, the benefit payable to the child is the lesser of:
• $763 per month per child, or
• $2,289 per month divided by the number of eligible children
Note: If you were a FERS or CSRS-Offset employee or retiree, the benefit payments will be reduced by the amount of any Social Security benefit payable based on your Social Security-covered federal service.
If a parent you were married to dies before your child’s benefit ends, the benefit is increased. Benefits may also be increased for other reasons. For example, if they are being paid to more than three children and the annuity for one of them ends for any reason, the annuities of the remaining children would be increased prospectively.
The survivor benefit to each qualified child begins the day after your death and ends on the last day of the one before the one in which the child dies, marries or reaches age 18—age 22 if the child is a student regularly attending a full-time course of study or training.
Next week, I’ll fill you in on the special rules that apply to the benefits for children with disabling conditions.
Former head of retirement and insurance policy at the Office of Personnel Management, and longtime FEDweek contributor, Reg Jones is known throughout the federal workforce community as an authority on pay and benefits.
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