Retirement issues can be confusing, especially when there is a pension involved and one spouse has Social Security benefits. It is up to each state to decide whether (and which) government employees would be covered by Social Security. Therefore, a state could choose for teachers to participate in Social Security even if they are covered by a stand-alone retirement plan (such as TRS).
Illinois is one of 15 states that do not participate in Social Security for teachers. Thus, teachers in Illinois do not pay Social Security taxes. If a teacher has other employment, through which they do participate in Social Security though, the Social Security benefit is diluted by the Teachers’ Retirement System (“TRS”) pension.
Until 1986, all teachers were allowed to collect both their TRS benefits and Social Security benefits earned from other jobs. This resulted in the Windfall Elimination Act (“WEP”), which was enacted by Congress in 1986. WEP lowered Social Security benefits for retired TRS members unless the teacher acquired 30 years of “substantial earnings” from another job. This means that they had to hold a second full-time job.
Similarly, Congress also passed the Government Pension Offset, which addresses teachers participating in the TRS from receiving benefits as a “dependent” spouse. This is for spouses, widows, or widowers. Under the GPO, the benefit to the TRS member-spouse is reduced from the benefit the member could have been expected to receive from a spouse’s Social Security.
For instance, Social Security benefits to a spouse will be reduced by two-thirds of the TRS benefit. When spouses of teachers are alive, the teachers are only allowed to receive 50% of the spouses’ Social Security benefit. However, usually the TRS pension is higher than 50% of their spouse’s Social Security benefit so they will not end up receiving Social Security. If the teacher-spouse is a widow/widower, though, the teacher-spouse is entitled to all of the deceased spouse’s benefit, but only if it is larger than their own TRS benefit.
Comments 8
My mother is an Illinois teacher retiree who is in the TRS. When her husband passed 3 yrs ago, she got money from his SS benefits. She insisted that she couldn’t take them so she fought with SSA to return the money.
I still believe she had rights to his benefits. How can I find out if she should have kept this money?
Thank you
My mother had taken care of and claimed my son from 2006 until her death in 2018 though he wasnt legally adopted should he be receiving some type of TRS benifits?
My wife is a teacher in Illinois and we live in iowa. I am collecting social security as I am older than her. Should I die is she entitled to my social security? She will be retiring in 4 more years at 60 years old.
Hello-my sister is an Illinios teacher and is currently going through a divorce. She would like her and her ex to each retain their own retirement accounts. However, he wants to have access to her TRS pension. (He is proposing splitting their retirement 50/50) However, we think if he has access to her TRS, then his Social Security should also be factored into the equation in addition to his 401k. What is the common practice for retirement and divorcing couples when one has a pension without SS and the other does have SS?
I am experiencing the exact same thing. I would love some explanation and help with this as well.
My wife is retiring and will collect illinois teachers retirement pension for 10 years, then start collecting social security on my benefits. Will she have to pay back 2/3s of her teachers pension she collected for those 10 years that she didn’t collect social security under my ss benefits? Or does that start going forward on the day she starts receiving social security, and they do not go back and collect the 2/3s of the previous 10 years of payments?
I was a teacher in Illinois from 1966 until 1999, when I retired after 33 years of teaching. During those years I was not allowed to contribute to Social Security for the purpose of getting Medicare. But teachers in Illinois now have that opportunity. Do you know what year that went into effect? It must have been after I retired, because I didn’t know about it while I was teaching.
Before I started teaching, during teaching, and after retirement I did some part-time work, but by the time I was 65 I still had only 15 credits in Social Security, and I needed 40 to get Medicare. Even if I had been able to find a full-time job, I could have earned only 4 credits per year, so a total of 40 seemed unobtainable by the age of 65. And each year I continued to receive a mailing from Social Security, telling me that I still didn’t qualify for Medicare.
If I had married someone my age or older, I would not have the problem that faces me now.
But in 1986 I married a man who was 11 years younger than me. So when I was 65 he was only 54, and by the time he turned 65 in December, 2019 I was 76. With the appearance of Covid in early 2020, I could not get my interview with Social Security until Autumn of 2021, so by the time that I was able to start Medicare on July 1, 2022 at the age of 77, I was saddled with a 120% penalty, which I am still paying.
Social Security offered me the opportunity to write a Request for Reconsideration which I submitted in August, 2022. In May, 2023 they denied me any reconsideration, but then in July they offered me the opportunity to reduce my penalty from 120% to 70%, but I need to pay $13,441.00 to be considered that my Medicare started in December, 2017 instead of July, 2022.
Is it worth it? As far as I can figure, by dividing that amount into the 55 months that they are willing to cover with their offer, it seems that I will be paying more for a catch-up 70% penalty than I am now paying for a 120% penalty, and I will have to live to 92 years and 6 months in order to break even. Since I’ve already had cancer in 1985, 2015, and 2022, I am skeptical about my chances for survival to that age and beyond.
My mother never worked a day in her life after she married my Dad who was 3 years older, so she had very few Social Security credits. Yet she started Medicare as his spouse at 65 and she lived to be 99! With my health history, will I be so lucky? It appears that the only way that I could have avoided a penalty would have been to divorce my husband during our 23rd year of marriage and find a man to marry my own age or older! (A drastic solution!)
This is the sentence that Social Security includes each time that they write to me: “This medical insurance premium includes a penalty because you enrolled later than you could have.” I continue to feel that I could not have enrolled any sooner because the State of Illinois would not allow me to pay into Social Security while I was teaching, and Social Security were the ones who wouldn’t allow me to enroll with so few credits! I have requested a hearing, but what chance do I have to be penalty-free without paying an enormous penalty amount added to each premium payment? Is a hearing even wise, or should I just stick with the 120% penalty that I have now, or pay the additional sum to get the 70%, where I will end up paying even more than the 120%?
I was a teacher in Illinois from 1966 until 1999, when I retired after 33 years of teaching. During those years I was not allowed to contribute to Social Security for the purpose of getting Medicare. But teachers in Illinois now have that opportunity. Do you know what year that went into effect? It must have been after I retired, because I didn’t know about it while I was teaching.
Before I started teaching, during teaching, and after retirement I did some part-time work, but by the time I was 65 I still had only 15 credits in Social Security, and I needed 40 to get Medicare. Even if I had been able to find a full-time job, I could have earned only 4 credits per year, so a total of 40 seemed unobtainable by the age of 65. And each year I continued to receive a mailing from Social Security, telling me that I still didn’t qualify for Medicare.
If I had married someone my age or older, I would not have the problem that faces me now. But in 1986 I married a man who was 11 years younger than me. So when I was 65 he was only 54, and by the time he turned 65 in December, 2019 I was 76. With the appearance of Covid in early 2020, I could not get my interview with Social Security until Autumn of 2021, so by the time that I was able to start Medicare on July 1, 2022 at the age of 77, I was saddled with a 120% penalty, which I am still paying.
Social Security offered me the opportunity to write a Request for Reconsideration which I submitted in August, 2022. In May, 2023 they denied me any reconsideration, but then in July they offered me the opportunity to reduce my penalty from 120% to 70%, but I need to pay $13,441.00 to be considered that my Medicare started in December, 2017 instead of July, 2022.
Is it worth it? As far as I can figure, by dividing that amount into the 55 months that they are willing to cover with their offer, it seems that I will be paying more for a catch-up 70% penalty than I am now paying for a 120% penalty, and I will have to live to 92 years and 6 months in order to break even. Since I’ve already had cancer in 1985, 2015, and 2022, I am skeptical about my chances for survival to that age and beyond.
My mother never worked a day in her life after she married my Dad who was 3 years older, so she had very few Social Security credits. Yet she started Medicare as his spouse at 65 and she lived to be 99! With my health history, will I be so lucky? It appears that the only way that I could have avoided a penalty would have been to divorce my husband during our 23rd year of marriage and find a man to marry my own age or older! (A drastic solution!)
This is the sentence that Social Security includes each time that they write to me: “This medical insurance premium includes a penalty because you enrolled later than you could have.” I continue to feel that I could not have enrolled any sooner because the State of Illinois would not allow me to pay into Social Security while I was teaching, and Social Security were the ones who wouldn’t allow me to enroll with so few credits! I have requested a hearing, but what chance do I have to be penalty-free without paying an enormous penalty amount added to each premium payment? Is a hearing even wise, or should I just stick with the 120% penalty that I have now, or pay the additional sum to get the 70%, where I will end up paying even more than the 120%?