I was married almost 30 years, most of which was spent at home raising our four children. My ex was self employed as a lawyer and worked as a teacher for about 8 years. I now receive half of his teachers pension of about 800.00 a month, I've been working since the divorce and my ss benefits will be about 1200.00 month if I work till I'm 70. I will be 63 this year and my ex will be 60. The local SS office told me my ss benefits wouldn't be penalized because the school pension was awarded in a divorce settlement. Is this true? He's remarried and the ss person told me my benefits were more than his at that point. Thank you.

Hi,

The money you receive from your husband's teachers pension won't affect your Social Security benefit, but it has nothing to do with the fact that it was awarded in a divorce settlement. Both Social Security's Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) provisions can cause a reduction in a person's SS benefits if they receive a pension from their OWN work for an employer that was exempt from paying Social Security taxes. The pension you get is based on your ex's work, so it wont' affect your SS benefits.

However, the teacher's pension that your husband receives will likely cause him to receive a lower Social Security benefit due to WEP, which explains why your own SS benefit is more than one-half of his. Fortunately for you, though, WEP doesn't reduce survivor benefits, so if your ex dies before you your potential survivor benefit on his account will be calculated using the normal, more generous, formula.

Assuming you haven't remarried, and since you were born prior to 1954, you still have the option of filing just for a divorced spousal benefit at age 66, then switching to your own account at age 70 when it will be at it's highest possible rate. This may very well be your best long-term option. You may wish to consider running the maximization software available on this website in order to get a better idea of all of your options.

Best, Jerry