I have been teacher for 25 years and am retiring in May. I also worked 40 quarters under Social Security before teaching. I have been told I will not collect SS due to a Windfall elimination act. What windfall? A teacher salary? I also am divorced and was married for 15 years. What SS am I entitled to? Thanks, Becky

Hi Becky,

If you receive a pension based on your earnings that were exempt from Social Security taxes, your Social Security retirement benefit rate will likely be calculated using a less generous formula due to the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). Although WEP can reduce a person's benefit rate, it never reduces their rate to zero. So, if you have 40 quarters of Social Security covered work then you should be able to draw at least some benefits.

If you qualify for divorced spousal benefits (https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/handbook/handbook.03/handbook-0311.html) and if you receive a pension based on your work for a governmental agency where you didn't pay Social Security taxes, any divorced spousal benefits that you could otherwise be paid would likely be offset by 2/3rds of the amount of your government pension. That's because of the Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision. So, it sounds like you'll probably only be able to collect divorced spousal benefits if your teacher's pension is less than 1.5 times as much as your divorced spousal rate (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10007.pdf).

Our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) is programmed to handle cases involving both WEP and GPO, so you may want to consider using it to determine what benefits you may qualify for and to determine your best strategy for claiming your benefits.

Best, Jerry