Social Security Advisory Board Recommends Improved Access and Increased Awareness of Survivor Benefits for Children

Social Security Advisory Board Recommends Improved Access and Increased Awareness of Survivor Benefits for Children

Chad Bolt

Online Posts

First Focus on Children

2025

reason: it serves more than 52 million seniors, and is the nation’s largest anti-poverty program. But Social Security also benefits children: approximately 2.5 million minor children receive Social Security survivor benefits following the death of a parent. Child survivor benefits were added to the Social Security Act in 1939, just four years after the original legislation was enacted into law — meaning that serving bereaved children has been a core component of the program for almost 90 years. Surviving children and their caregivers can face tremendous financial hardship after the death of a parent. Such economic insecurity then leads to other negative outcomes for children in nearly every facet of their lives. Fortunately, most bereaved children qualify for Social Security survivor benefits. Research shows that receiving these benefits helps mitigate the negative economic effects associated with their parent’s death, so that bereaved children can go on to live successful lives despite losing a parent during childhood. In this way, the survivor benefits act exactly as they are intended: social insurance against the loss of a parent. Unfortunately, research also suggests roughly one million eligible surviving children are not reached by the Social Security system. This failure may happen, in part, because caregivers do not know the child in their care qualifies for benefits. Recently, the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB), a nonpartisan group of Social Security experts, analyzed data from the University of Southern California’s Understanding America Study to determine why this gap exists. The SSAB found that 83% of participants in the study correctly understood that survivor benefits were available to children, but also determined that this understanding varied across demographic groups. In its report, the SSAB also made recommendations to improve access and increase awareness of survivor benefits.