§404.304. What are the general rules on benefit amounts? — Inbound Citations

(c) We will compute your reinstated benefit amount and determine benefits payable under the applicable paragraphs of §§ 404.201 through 404.480 with certain exceptions—

(1) We will reduce your reinstated benefit due in a month by the amount of the provisional benefit we already paid you for that month. If your provisional benefit paid for a month exceeds the reinstated benefit, we will treat the difference as an overpayment under §§ 404.501 through 404.527.

(2) If you are reinstated on your own earnings record, we will compute your primary insurance amount with the same date of onset we used in your most recent period of disability on your earnings record.

In addition to the situations described in § 404.304 when you may not receive a benefit payment, there are special circumstances when you may not be entitled to benefits. These circumstances are—

Your wife's or husband's monthly benefit is equal to one-half the insured person's primary insurance amount. If you are entitled as a divorced wife or as a divorced husband before the insured person becomes entitled, we will compute the primary insurance amount as if he or she became entitled to old-age benefits in the first month you are entitled as a divorced wife or as a divorced husband. The amount of your monthly benefit may change as explained in § 404.304.

(b) We may increase your monthly benefit amount if the insured person delays filing for benefits or requests voluntary suspension of benefits, and thereby earns delayed retirement credit (see § 404.313), and/or works before the year 2000 after reaching full retirement age (as defined in § 404.409(a)). The amount of your monthly benefit may change as explained in § 404.304.

Your mother's or father's monthly benefit is equal to 75 percent of the insured person's primary insurance amount. The amount of your monthly benefit may change as explained in § 404.304.

(a) Your child's monthly benefit is equal to one-half of the insured person's primary insurance amount if he or she is alive and three-fourths of the primary insurance amount if he or she has died. The amount of your monthly benefit may change as explained in § 404.304.

Your parent's monthly benefit before any reduction that may be made as explained in § 404.304, is figured in one of the following ways:

(b) Your wife's or husband's benefits before any reduction (see §§ 404.304 and 404.333) are reduced first (if necessary) for the family maximum under § 404.403. They are then reduced based on the number of months of entitlement prior to the month you attain full retirement age. This does not include any month in which you have a child of the worker on whose earnings record you are entitled in your care. The child must be entitled to child benefits. The reduction is 25/36 of 1 percent for each of the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1 percent for each month in excess of 36.

(2) Before applying the benefit rounding provisions (see § 404.304(f)), and,

(4) If the monthly benefit payable to you after the required reduction(s) is not a multiple of $1.00, we will reduce it to the next lower multiple of $1.00 as required by § 404.304(f).

Deductions are made against the total family benefits where the excess earnings (as described in § 404.430) of an individual entitled to old-age insurance benefits are charged to a month and require deductions in an amount less than the total family benefits payable on his earnings record for that month (including the amount of a mother's or child's insurance benefit payable to a spouse who is deemed entitled on the individual's earnings record—see § 404.420). The difference between the total benefits payable and the deductions made under the annual earnings test for such month is paid (if otherwise payable under title II of the Act) to each person in the proportion that the benefit to which each is entitled (before the application of the reductions described in § 404.403 for the family maximum, § 404.407 for entitlement to more than one type of benefit, and section 202(q) of the Act for entitlement to benefits before retirement age) and before the application of § 404.304(f) to round to the next lower dollar bears to the total of the benefits to which all of them are entitled, except that the total amount payable to any such person may not exceed the benefits which would have been payable to that person if none of the insured individual's excess earnings had been charged to that month.