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Social Security Q&A: Will My Federal Retirement Wipe Out My Social Security?

This article is more than 9 years old.

Social Security may be your largest or one of your largest assets. How you manage it, by deciding which benefits to collect and when, can make an absolutely huge difference to your lifetime benefits. And those with the highest past covered earnings have the most to gain from maximizing their Social Security.

I've been answering questions and writing columns about Social Security each week for the past two years on PBS NEWSHOUR's website. The editors at Forbes asked me to post a Q&A each day from those columns. To see all my columns, please go to my software company's site, www.maximizemysocialsecurity.com, and click More Press below the WSJ quote.

Today's question involves both the number of quarters covered by Social Security necessary to have insured status and how the Windfall Elimination Provision may — or may not — affect your benefits if you receive or will receive a government pension.

Question: I am a federal employee with 15 years service. I am planning on retiring at 19 years when I reach age 66. Some of my coworkers are insisting I will not get both my federal retirement and Social Security — that I must take one or the other. Is that true?

Answer: Not if you have 40 quarters of covered earnings history under Social Security, it’s not: 40 quarters of a year in which you had earnings on which you and your employer paid the Social Security tax. If you did that, you’re entitled to Social Security benefits. And if I am reading your numbers correctly, you’re now 62 and only began working for the federal government at age 47. So you had plenty of time to accrue those 40 quarters or 10 years’ worth of Social Security earnings.

Perhaps your co-workers are referring to the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). The WEP can reduce, but not wipe out, the benefits to which you are entitled.

This said, you appear to have started work as a federal employee after 1986. If this is true, and you have paid Social Security taxes for the requisite 40 quarters, your Social Security benefits will not be affected by the WEP.