SSN benefit and teachers

Hi Terry.

My wife is a teacher. She has her own social security benefit through education, but has also worked many years during the summer in regular business and has a regular social security benefit. Do you know what we need to do to make sure that she gets her regular social security benefit? She is only 43 but we want to know what we need to do before the stress of having to do it in her 60’s. Do we need to contact a lawyer to fill out proper paperwork? Do we contact the Social Security Administration to make sure she gets her entitled benefit? Stuff like that …

Thanks. – Brian

Terry Says:  The first thing to do is go to www.SocialSecurity.gov and securely check to see if the covered earnings she has from private employment have been correctly reported under her name.  The second thing is to contact her teacher’s HR department and find out exactly how benefits from private employment (ie SS) and her teacher’s retirement benefits are CO-ORDINATED.  That is the important word.  It depends on the state and on the school system, but I’m quite sure you will find there is some sort of “offset” of benefits.  That is, one or the other may be reduced so that the total benefits received is not a so-called “windfall.”   You are right to check  on this now — because, sadly, you may find that it does not “pay” for her to work during the summer after considering current taxes and future benefits.