Salinas, CA Social Security Pays LGBT Widows Differently Depending Upon What State They Live In

There’s been a lot of news about gay marriage becoming legal in a number of states and it’s an important issue because our Federal Government pays those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered (LGBT) and are widowed a different Social Security payment based not just on their marital status, but where they live.   A widowed person who was married to someone of the same sex would be paid a Social Security payment based on being single if they live in a state where same sex marriage is not legal.  This seems to me to be bizarre given that it’s a benefit distributed by the U.S. government which I think should have a standard payment calculation.  The Associated Press recently interviewed a woman named Kathy Murphy who was married to another woman who passed away after they were together for more than three decades.  She would be paid $582/month more in Social Security if she would have moved from Texas to neighboring New Mexico prior to her spouse passing away.  Although the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act last year which enabled LGBT widows to get Social Security benefits for the first time, President Obama has been unsuccessful getting the law changed.  It currently requires federal programs to use individual states’ definition of marriage.  “The Social Security Administration knows this is a problem, but there is little they can do, because they’re bound to the letter of the law,” Karen Loewy, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal, told a reporter.