Wife qualfies for SSD, what would you do.

wgriswold wrote:

soren wrote:

At this point, everybody involved in our situation, and everything I have found online, indicates that any employer pension benefit has nothing to do with qualifying for SSDI, or the amount of benefits.

Not quite right, at least in 2003. My wife worked as a teacher's aide for many years and participated in both PERS( a Calif. pension plan) and Social Security. She paid her share of premiums in both plans. That is important because the rule is:

"The second provision, called the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), affects how we calculate your Social Security retirement or disability benefits if you receive a pension from work not covered by Social Security. See our WEP page for more information."

Initially her SS pension was reduced by about half because SS assumed that per employer had picked up the employee part of her PERS pension. When we proved that she had paid it her amount was increased to the full amount. As I understand it, it is fairly common for employers (at least in Calif.) to pick up the PERS employee contribution if lieu of raises for tax reasons.

It sounds like this doesn't apply to you. I mention it to help someone else in my wife's position.

Our state (PA, BTW, South Dakota is where we spend a lot of our summers) is quite the opposite when it comes to responsible pension practices. Not only did she pay every penny of her portion of the contributions (7.5%), but the state is corrupt enough that they failed to remit billions that they were required to. So, to clarify, her pension was fully funded by weekly payroll deductions, and does not fall under any windfall provision. I already have the statement from SS stating her monthly benefit, if approved for SSDI, based on her work history. Even if it did fall under windfall provisions, it would of "timed out" by virtue of having over thirty years of "substantial wages" that had SS taxes deducted.