I am Kevin Walton an RSSA, registered social security advisor and part of the NARRSA Network. I educate local, state and federal employees, including school employees who work for a state funded school, and on how having a non-contributing social security pension employer generates the social security WEP, or windfall elimination provision, and the social security GPO, or government pension offset penalties which can have an adverse effect on social security benefits.
Some Human Resource Departments do not have social security trained people on staff to properly advise employees preparing for retirement or who are starting employment on how the above penalties negatively affect social security benefits which can adversely affect financial longevity.
An RSSA Roadmap report will show social security benefits options for single people for each year from 62-70 years of age, all age claiming combinations for married couples for ages 62 through 70 including projected spousal and survivor benefits, annual figures when continuing work and claiming social security simultaneously and adjusted social security benefits reflecting the social security WEP and social security GPO penalties as a result from having a state pension.
We are consistently seeing state employees, including teachers and school staff, having to repay social security benefits to the Social Security Administration that didn’t include the social security WEP and social security GPO penalty, that years down the line, get caught, which can further reduce their monthly benefit until the deficit gets repaid. Regardless of who is at fault for this oversight, the federal government feels it is up to the school employee to know and figure it out. The RSSA Roadmap report will figure it out for you.
Here is a sample RSSA report for school employee that properly reflects a WEP, windfall elimination provision, as well as the GPO, government pension offset reduction.
Knowing these figures ahead of time, prior to retiring or taking social security benefits, is critical to long term planning.
I am currently doing webinars for both larger audiences and one to one to serve as an educational resource for people who work for employers that offer pensions in lieu of contributing to social security, to demonstrate how the WEP and GPO penalties may affect them.
Feel free to watch this 3-minute introductory video below and an additional detailed in-depth breakdown video, also below, of both the WEP and GPO applied to a scenario with ideas on how to minimize both penalties.
Please feel free to leave a comment or tell me your scenario in the form below and thank you!
Regards,
Kevin Walton RSSA Ventura County, California working nationwide to educate people on all things social security.
Below is the WEP and GPO ‘deep dive” video