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Social Security Meeting

Today I had to attend a meeting at the Social Security Administration to learn about the positives/negatives of opting into the Social Security system beginning January 2010.  My work is in sort of a unique situation, and with the merger that previously happened, those that weren’t into Social Security would have the option to join it in 2010.  As I would have guessed, the laws, amendments, etc. for deciding are about as complicated as the IRS’s and it’s forms for filing taxes each year.

I already have 13 credits built up in Social Security from working part-time with my brother, and the chances are that I will hit the required 40 sometime during my working life.  The complications that come up with deciding whether to join or not have to deal with the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset.  As complicated as those are, my age really helps me with deciding.  The way I’m looking at it, is I am diciplined enough to be able to stick aside at least 6.2% of my income without ever touching it, which would be the amount that would be taken out for Social Security, and I’m already paying the 1.45% for Medicare.  So it appears to me that I am just as well off to stay out of Social Security and stay into our defined benefits plan at work for as long as I’m here, however long that ends up being, and then enter Social Security fully when my employment changes.