its not enough

ITS NOT ENOUGH


this is the story of one teacher who taught in one of the school districts in texas that doesnt pay into social security
there are a lot of these districts who did this to save money

ok that teacher is my wife she

she started working as a teenager and worked through high school through college while i was in medical school and several years after that
she paid social security all through those working years
she has a total of about 18 years of paying into social security 

she reentered the work force in her mid 40s as a high school teacher
her district did not pay into social security 
so
that means
the wep kicks it
ie the windfall elimination provision kicks in

whats that you say
its a formula where you substract your teacher retirement from what your social security would be
most teachers get a zero when they do the calculation
my wife she gets a sum of $400 on social security based on her 18 years or on half my social security

it works like this
lets say her annual trs retirement is $20,000
lets say her social security would be $15,000
then her social security would be $5,000

when i die instead of getting lets say $30,000 a year from social security 
she will only get about $12,000 a year
many teachers we know get zero

so instead of retirement income of $50,000 a year
she will only get $32,000 a year

thats what the windfall elimination provision does to thousands of teachers and other workers

now we knew this would happen thanks to my rainwater brother who was also a certified financial planner
he educated us on all of this 
so
we put a lot into my wifes 403b plan over her 17 years of teaching
so we have more than enough to cover that loss of income each year

sadly
most teachers cant afford to so this

then
theres the no cost of living adjustment on the texas teacher retirement system
why wife she has been retired for 8 years
she got two months of extra pay i guess because the legislature felt bad about the teacher retirement system

now the cola or cost of living adjustment was voted in by the states of texas
my wife she gets 2% adjustment one time
you do the math on $20,000
its $400

last year social security cola was 8.7% and next year it will be around 3.2%
if it was her trs she would get $1740 this year and $640 next year

what this means for a retired school teacher who doesnt get their social security checks
they have no cola to compensate for the cost of living
their buying power of their retirement checks drops about what the cola is each years
in 10 years they can lose 25%+ of their buying power 

now my wife she and i planned for this with her 403b which easily covers this loss for her
most teachers dont have this protection

you can easily see how a retired teacher can be forced into severe poverty

whats the solution

eliminate the windfall elimination provision
congress has to do this
sadly they cant even fix the daylight not savings time issue

give a cola cost of living adjustment thats fair each year
odds of texas doing that is low

what they are doing now is not enough

the organicgreen doctor