My mom has been receiving a Social Security Retirement benefit for a few years. Today she received a letter saying that they made a mistake in determining her benefit and it will be reduced from ~$1,100 to ~$700. I don't have all the details yet, but she suspects that something happened where they are now paying her earned benefit rather than the benefit she gets from being married (~20 years) to my father. She was a stay at home mom and he worked as a physician, so obviously his benefit will be significantly higher than hers. She has not remarried.
Does anyone have any advice for this situation? I plan to help her figure this out and if necessary will help with the appeal. I have a few specific questions, but here's where I plan to start. First, she doesn't have an online account with SSA.gov, so I asked her to set that up. I hope that she can log in and see the details of her earnings and possibly his, and maybe we can see if they have his account linked in some way to hers. I've never logged in so I don't know what if anything they have online. Second, I plan to work with my dad to get his estimated benefit. If I have that I should be able to calculate her benefit (half of his, and I think she started claiming at age 62). With his and her information I should be able to calculate the benefit she should be getting. If the new benefit is correct then that will really suck, but we'll make it work. If she should be getting the higher amount then we'll need to start the appeals process.
Is the above plan correct, at least for the first few steps? If we find she should get the higher benefit, then:
Do we need to hire a lawyer? She doesn't have much income or any significant assets, but if necessary I could pay for a lawyer for her.
Are there any organizations that help low income senior citizens with this type of appeal?
Which type of appeal (Case Review, Informal Conference, Formal Conference) should we request? Obviously if we hire a lawyer they'll help make this decision, but does anyone here have any advice?
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!