Q: I am a 78-year-old recent widow. I got my own Social Security number (SSN) when I was about 20. But since my husband and I started getting Social Security benefits about 15 years ago, the correspondence I have received from the Social Security Administration (SSA) has shown my husband’s SSN with a letter “B” after it. Somebody at a Social Security office once told me that this meant that I was getting wife’s benefits on my husband’s record. How does the letter “B” stand for a wife? And now that my husband has died, I notice that any mail I get from the SSA shows my husband’s number with a letter D. Does this mean “deceased”?
A: No, it doesn’t mean deceased. Believe it or not, it stands for “widow”! You may legitimately wonder why in the world a “D” means widow. Wouldn’t you think that it should be a “W”? I will use this column to explain the mysterious world of Social Security claim numbers. SSA jargon for these numbers is beneficiary identification codes (BIC).
