Hello Sir;
I will be receiving $1200/ month as a pension from my job when I retire soon at age 70. Will this reduce my monthly social security benefits.
Another question:
I am still working at age 69, but I did not get any credits in my social security benefits since I reached age 66. I just got the 8% increase in January. I called SSA, but no body gave me a convincing anser. What Should I do.
Thanks for your help.
Hi,
Your pension could only affect your Social Security benefits if your earnings on which the pension is based were exempt from Social Security taxes. In that case your Social Security benefits could be adversely affected due to the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). For information on the WEP provision, refer to the following Social Security publication (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10045.pdf).
It isn't clear from your question whether or not you are currently drawing benefits, but there are two different things that can potentially increase your Social Security retirement benefit rate after you reach full retirement age (FRA). One is delayed retirement credits (DRC), which increase your benefit rate by 2/3rds of 1% for each month that you aren't paid benefits between FRA and age 70. If you're already drawing your Social Security retirement benefits, you can't accrue additional DRCs.
The other thing that can potentially increase your benefit rate is if you earn more in a year than you did in one or more of the previous highest 35 wage-indexed earnings years on which your current benefit rate is based. Your earnings must, of course, be subject to Social Security taxes in order to be used in the calculation of your benefit rate. Social Security retirement benefits are based on an average of a person's highest 35 years of Social Security covered wage-indexed earnings, so additional years of earnings only increase a person's benefit rate if they're higher than one or more of the 35 years currently being used to calculate the person's benefit rate.
If you're already drawing your benefits and you think that your earnings last year were high enough to increase your benefit rate, Social Security should increase your rate automatically. If they don't, you can submit a written request for a recomputation of your benefit rate, along with proof of your most recent year's earnings (e.g. W-2 form).
Best, Jerry
