The minor children of retirees are potentially eligible for benefits on the retiree's Social Security account. I am constantly amazed how this little known and also rarely paid benefit can ignite such passions on the part of so many people. Here are four recent emails I got that illustrate the various sides of this contentious issue. (I made up the names associated with the emails so that I can refer back to them later.)

Tom wrote to say: "I will tell you one way we can put Social Security back in the black. Stop sending checks to the children of retirees. A guy should be forced to support his own children and not expect the government to bail him out each month."

Dick wrote to say: "I know of two retired men in town who are millionaires. They both have younger trophy wives, and they both have young children. I was shocked to learn that their kids are getting Social Security checks each month. Why is the government supporting the illicit lifestyle of these immoral hucksters?"

Harry wrote to say: "I recently applied for Social Security at age 66. The questionnaire asked me if I had any children disabled before age 22. We have a 26-year-old daughter who was born with Down syndrome. I was surprised (and thrilled) to learn that she will get a monthly check on my Social Security account. Frankly, paying the high costs of her care for all these years has kept me and my wife from having some of the better things in life that we see our neighbors and friends enjoying. If you have never addressed this issue in your column, please do."

Mary wrote to say: "I am a 48-year-old divorced woman with a 16-year-old daughter. I made a big mistake 16 years ago and got pregnant and then married the father of this child. He ran out on us several years later. He has never been a loving or supportive father. He is now 62 years old, and I learned that he recently filed for Social Security. The only reason I learned this is because the Social Security office contacted me and told me our daughter was eligible for benefits on his record. They helped me file a claim, and my daughter now gets a check for $780 every month. Please share my story with other women in my situation. Let them know that there can be help through Social Security from deadbeat dads.

Before I comment on these emails, let me provide some background information about the benefits we are talking about.

Ever since 1939, Social Security law has stipulated that the legal dependents of anyone getting Social Security retirement benefits should be eligible for a share of those benefits. Ninety-five percent of the time, that dependent is a spouse. People expect that the wife or husband of a retiree should be entitled to a portion of the retiree's benefits — unless the spouse gets higher benefits on his or her own Social Security account or from another non-Social Security-covered retirement plan (like a teacher's retirement benefit in some states). I've never heard anyone squabble about the payment of benefits to a dependent spouse.

But in rare cases, a retiree still has a minor child at home. And a child is a legal dependent just as much as a spouse is a legal dependent, maybe even more so. That's why the law has always said that children of retirees qualify for benefits. They get benefits until age 18, or they can continue beyond that age if the child is disabled.

For obvious biological reasons, there are very few women of retirement age who have small children at home. And even though older men can have children, it still doesn't happen all that often — even when considering men who have married "trophy wives," as Dick complained about. The latest numbers show that out of 56 million Social Security beneficiaries, only about 550,000 of them are children of retirees — or a little less than one percent.

I've talked to hundreds, if not thousands, of people about this issue over the years. People who are against paying benefits to the children of retirees think like Tom and Dick. They believe the government is wasting money by supporting doddering daddies or philandering fools. They don't think of folks like Harry and Mary. I don't think anyone would begrudge Harry the benefits that are being paid to his disabled daughter. And I hope most people can agree that women like Mary who have been abused by their husbands, and their children who have been deserted by their dads, deserve to get a portion of the deadbeat's Social Security check.

So what do we do about benefits to children of retirees? Because of the thousands of Harrys and Marys out there, I don't think we can simply eliminate them. And do we really want a government bureaucrat sitting in judgment of the men that Tom and Dick complain about? I mean — how do we decide who is a philandering fool and who is just a nice retired dad who happens to have a teenager still at home? And who is an "immoral huckster" with a trophy wife, and who is a guy who just happened to meet and fall in love with a younger woman? Even if you could figure out a way to morally and legally weed out the "fools" and "hucksters," is it worth the effort?

If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has the answer. Contact him at thomas.margenau@comcast.net. To find out more about Tom Margenau and to read past columns and see features from other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.