"Inherit" is the wrong word, and that is exactly why so many people get this wrong.
You inherit a house. You inherit a savings account. Somebody dies, an asset exists, and it moves to you.
A pension is not an asset sitting somewhere with your spouse's name on it. It is a promise to pay income for a life. And when that life ends, the promise ends too, unless somebody specifically arranged for it to continue.
So the real question is not whether your spouse inherits your pension. It is whether your pension was set up to keep paying after you die.
The answer comes down to a form. Usually one page. Usually signed years earlier during a stack of retirement paperwork that nobody read closely.
Get that form right and your spouse receives a monthly check for the rest of their life. Get it wrong and the income stops the month you die, permanently, with no appeal.
Let's go through exactly how it works, what federal law guarantees, and the specific things to check before it is too late to change anything.