I performed an interesting what-if analysis. Could a married retiree who never worked and filed for Social Security spousal benefits earn as much benefit as a single retiree who worked for 40 - 50 years? The answer, of course, is yes. But to what degree? Assume the married retiree's working spouse maxed out for 35 years. In 2020 that would be $137,700. Assume the married retiree filed at their full retirement age of 66 this year. Their benefit would then be approximately $17,500 / year. So, based on my calculations, if the single retiree made $40,600 this year and the same amount adjusted backwards for inflation in previous years for a career of 35 years, their benefit would be about $17,500 / year as well.
Things get even worse for the single retiree if they work more than 35 years because their benefit does not increase. They are getting a 43% income replacement after 35 years which isn't bad. The retiree who maxed out can expect their individual benefit to equal a 25% salary replacement, but 38% if you include the spousal benefit as a household total.
The rawest deals go to the high-earning single retirees or the high-earning married couples who are dually entitled (both working) who will get the 25% salary replacement, especially if they have careers lasting longer than 35 years.
The simulations were performed using my Retireator tool (v2020.0229)
https://www.retireator.org/
Social Security is designed as a basic functional safety net to keep elderly, disabled, widows (of either sex), and children out of poverty. As a child whose father died and whose family therefore received a small SSI stipend until I turned 18, I can attest that it does this pretty well.
Another way to look at your scenario (since you seem to be concerned that non-working widows are gaming the system) is that:
1) the $40,600 single employee makes less than one-third of what the $137,700 employee makes, yet his benefit is the same as the widowed spouse. Seems like the single employee has been pretty well rewarded for his work in comparison to the single spouse. This is thanks to the "bend points" in SSI that ensure lower wage workers have closer to full income replacement. This phases out at certain "bend points" in the equation.
2) +1 to
@dandarc in that the "value" of the non-working spouse is $40-50k and it would be insulting to say that they don't deserve some kind of safety net in recompense for being the spouse of the worker who put in 339% more in taxes than the $40,600 worker. Plus it goes with the whole point of SSI - basic safety net to make sure this spouse doesn't fall through the cracks.
3) Non-working spouse may not have worked for a number of reasons that allowed the high earner to get that salary in the first place. My wife could make $100k and in fact left a $100k job and now has a job that is flexible and only $50k. But we don't have to pay for daycare ($32k/yr savings) and I was able to take a higher paying job ($50-70k pay bump including bonus) that requires significantly more travel etc. since kids are covered. Plus, she's happier. Happy wife, happy life.
4) In my personal above scenario - if my wife dies, I would welcome the SSI I would receive until kids are 18 to help pay for daycare, especially since I would likely need to downshift my career. Most folks would *NEED* it since they aren't mustachian in any sense. If I were to die without life insurance (and let's assume I was the average non-mustachian 31 year old), my wife would desparately need SSI until kids were 18 to make it through and she would absolutely deserve the spousal benefit for my SSI record since her career earnings were severely depressed through not being able to work at full capacity. To me all of that is pretty fair and again, basic benefit coverages.