Investopedia Retirement Planning: What Happens If A Spouse Dies -- January 6, 2023

Link to article posted January 4, 2023. 

Some data points:

• Social Security benefits have an automatic survivor benefit,
• 401(k) plans and other pension plans, federal law requires a spouse as the primary beneficiary, and choosing any other beneficiaries for those plans requires spousal waiver and consent (by the spouse)
• "inherited" traditional IRA
• the spousal beneficiary has five options for an "inherited" traditional IRA:
• keep the "inherited" IRA
• roll over the IRA -- into either a new one or a pre-existing one
• convert to a Roth IRA 
• disclaim all or part of the assets (pass them on to the contingent beneficiaries)
• take the money
• take the money
• 401 (k) plan
• if married, the spouse inherits the 401 (k);
• the only way that can change is if your spouse signs a document giving up their rights as a beneficiary. 

Federal death tax:

• 2022, exclusion: $12.06 million or less
• 2023, excluusion: $12.92 million (to account for inflation)

Social security:

Like your own payouts, the size of survivor benefits depends on your average lifetime earnings. Naturally, the more money you made, the larger the payments to your spouse.

In general, a person can only receive one benefit at a time. Widows and widowers have the option of collecting their survivor benefits first, then switching to their own benefit at a later date if that is higher.10 For example, your surviving spouse could wait until age 70—the latest one can delay receiving payouts—to switch to their individual benefit if that is higher than the survivor payment.

When a surviving spouse retires, Social Security will always pay an individual's personal benefits first. If their survival benefits are higher than their personal benefits, that person gets a combination of benefits, in a sum equal to that of those larger survival benefits.

"For example, if your spouse’s benefit was $1,200 per month and you had your own benefit of $600 per month, then your total Social Security benefit going forward is $1,200," says Mark Hebner, founder and president of Index Fund Advisors and author of Index Funds: The 12-Step Recovery Program for Active Investors.

The rules for survivor benefits are very complicated. They’re so complicated that Social Security requires that you speak to a representative to receive them.