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Would I Be Able To Get Social Security Benefits Without A Reduction?
I had worked under the Teacher Retirement System of Texas for
27 years, but was grandfathered under the Employment Retirement System (ERS) of Texas and retired with them with a combined total years of 30 years of service. The ERS does not fall under the Windfall E Provision but the Teacher Retirement did. Would I be able to get full social security benefits without have a reduced social security benefit?
Hi. It doesn't sound like it. Any pension that's based in whole or in part on a person's earnings that were exempt from Social Security taxes can cause their benefit rate to be reduced due to the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). Therefore, if you're collecting a teacher's pension that's based at least in part on non-Social Security covered earnings then it's very likely that your Social Security retirement benefit rate would be reduced by WEP (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10045.pdf).
Only the portion of your pension that's based on non-Social Security covered earnings would be used in calculating any applicable WEP reduction, but that would only make a difference in the amount of reduction caused by WEP if the non-covered pension amount is relatively small. Our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) is fully programmed to handle calculations involving the WEP provision, so you may want to strongly consider using the software to do your retirement planning.
Best, Jerry