SeniorChoices
June 6, 2019 • THE VILLAGER | PAGE 17
How a government pension might reduce your Social Security benefits Because of your teacher’s pension, Social Security will use a special formula to calculate your retirement benefits, reducing them compared to what you’d otherwise get. How much they’ll be reduced depends on your work history. But one rule that generally applies is that your Social Security retirement benefits cannot be cut by more than half the size of your pension. And the WEP does not apply to survivor benefits. If you’re married and die, your dependents can get a full Social Security payment, unless your spouse has earned his or her own government pension for which they didn’t pay Social Security taxes. If that’s the case, Social Security has another rule known as the Government Pension Offset (or GPO) that affects spouses
or widows/widowers benefits. Under the GPO, spousal and survivor benefits will be cut by twothirds of the amount of their pension. And if their pension is large enough, their Social Security spousal or survivor benefits will be zero. There are a few exceptions to these rules most of which are based on when you entered the Social Security workforce. Why Do These Rules Exist? According to the Social Security Administration, the reason Congress created the WEP (in 1983) and GPO (in 1977) was to create a more equitable system. People who get both a pension from non-Social Security work and benefits from Social Security-covered work get an unfair windfall due to the formula of how benefit amounts are calculated.
Living in Victimland
boat. The chore is to row. Rowing is hard work. Take responsibility to row, row, row. The next line is, “Gently down the stream”. Be gentle with yourself. Build yourself up. Forgive those who have low expectations of you. Utilize self-care. Outline do-able goals and accomplish them because success breeds success. “Merrily,
merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” Be of good cheer. Stay positive. Live in gratitude, serve others. Create your dream. Go after it. The educators loved this idea and said they would teach this. What was most moving was when I returned to this same town a year later to train a new
SAVVYSENIOR
Dear Savvy Senior, Windfall Elimination Provision (or As a teacher for 20 years, I reWEP). ceive a pension from a school system The WEP affects people who that did not withhold Social receive pensions from jobs Security taxes from my pay. in which they were not required to pay Social Security After teaching, I’ve been taxes – for example, police working for a small company officers, firefighters, teachers where I do pay Social Security taxes. Now, approaching and state and local government workers whose emage 65, I would like to retire ployers were not part of the and apply for my Social BY JIM MILLER national Social Security sysSecurity benefits. But I’ve tem. People who worked for been told that my teacher’s nonprofit or religious organizations pension may cause me to lose some before 1984 may also be outside the of my Social Security. Is that true? system. Ready to Retire Many of these people, like you, are also eligible for Social Security Dear Ready, retirement or disability benefits Yes, it’s true. It’s very likely based on other work they did over that your Social Security retirement the course of their career for which benefits will be reduced under the terms of a government rule called the Social Security taxes were paid.
As I see it, there are two types of people in this world, people who let things happen and people who make things happen. I teach this to students and train educators. I talk about overcoming being a victim (poor me) and becoming a victor (I’ve got this). Here is what one deals with in the company of a victim: victims have a “poor me” attitude. Everyone gets breaks in life except them. They are consumed with negative self-talk and act accordingly. They portray themselves as unfortunate ones who demand to be rescued. They consume ones’ energy as they give examples of their endless tales of misfortune. It is as if they are living in an alternative universe followed by a black cloud. They are needy, clingy, oppressed, unfairly treated and usually misunderstood. They are depressed, self-centered, negative, seldom take responsibility for their plight and blame shift. This may sound like a horrible way to exist, but to those who have this mindset, there are some innate benefits. From those who enable this mentality, victims get attention and validation. They feel they have little control over their circumstances. This is called “learned helplessness.” I remember facilitating a training with teachers in a former booming manufacturing town that experienced factory closures due to outsourcing. Jobs left and so did those who could leave to find other sources of income. The ones that stayed whined and moaned about the situation but did not seek to get into a retraining program or find other work. They resigned themselves to living on public assistance, modeling this learned helplessness to their children. The teachers were concerned that outlining lofty goals and life mapping for the children of these families, would be waste of time. These young ones would be going home to “Victim-land” with no chance of breaking free. I gave teachers an idea to break the cycle of learned helplessness that I learned listening to Dr. Wayne Dyer, author and motivational speaker. Dr. Dyer opined we should teach a song we all
know in a different way. The song is Row, Row, Row Your Boat. I taught the educators to teach the students to sing. “Row, row, row YOUR boat”, Not your parent’s boat, not your cousin’s boat, not your friends’ boat, but YOUR
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These rules ensure that government employees who don’t pay Social Security taxes would end up with roughly the same income as people who work in the private sector and do pay them. For more information on the WEP visit SSA.gov/planners/retire/ wep.html, where you’ll also find a link to their WEP online calculator to help you figure out how much your Social Security benefits may be reduced. And for more information on GPO, including a GPO calculator, see SSA.gov/planners/retire/gpo.html. Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior. org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book.
cadre of educators, I heard the students singing this song in the hallway. I almost cried! Let’s work together to break the cycle of victimhood and help young people becomes victors! joneen@myrelationshipcenter. org; www.myrelationshipcenter. org
SOMEONE TO COOK, CLEAN AND DO MY LAUNDRY? SOUNDS AWFUL. (Said no older person ever.)
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