I have tried to read through the various scenarios of UK people now in US who will qualify for both US soc sec pensions and UK state pensions. I presumed I would be allowed both as I won't have that much money even when both are added together, so now am worried that the UK one will be reduced. I have only just managed to achieve the 40 credits required to actually qualify for social security, I am almost 65, so won't be getting it for a couple of years, but for the UK pension I have worked 30 years. Is it then likely I will lose most of my UK pension now due to the windfall rule?

my understanding is that it is your USA social security that will be reduced by windfall rule ( WEP) and if you go onto the ssa website there is a WEP calculator on there that you can use to estimate what the reduction will be .

Thank you, I have a litlle while to try and figure it all out but I am already mildly panicked.

Even Canada has on line calculators for such things so I was sure the US would.

Hello, l am in possession of a form SSA-308 that l need to complete. Does anyone know if l need to provide of only the UK state pension or do they require details of any private pension as well?

Your UK state pension is what it is. There is no mechanism for it to be reduced because of other countries' pensions (whatever they are named), or company or private pensions, or any other retirement savings, investments, or income.

If you only have 30 years of contributions (if you stayed in school until you were 18 you may also have 2-3 "deemed" years of contributions) to UK NI for a state pension, have you considered making voluntary contributions to bring your pension up to the full standard pension by contributing five more years, to bring your contributions up to 35 years for the full pension? If you decide to do that, be sure to request to apply to make "Class 2" contributions, as they are much less than Class 3 contributions, but either are a good deal when you are close to retirement, but Class 2 especially so.

You can currently make contributions for any year from 2006-07 forwards. There is a very active thread on the subject here, that goes back 8 years, but you could probably start around January 2023 and read forwards, and only dig further back if you find a need to do so.

I just started to receive Social Security this year. I advised them I had a UK pension and the monthly amount I was receiving. It reduced the amount of social security I thought I would get by about $200 a month

Thank you Pulaski. So just to clarify, l do not have to submit private pension details. As far as the SSA-308 form is concerned l only need to provide details just about my UK state pension, right?

In order to calculate WEP Social Security asked about my wife's private pensions as well. It is any pension based on work where you didn't pay Social Security taxes. Which as far as UK pensions are concerned is everything except that part of the UK State pension derived from any voluntary NI payments.

Okay, thanks very much for your reply.

I saw another post recently on BE that suggested that a private pension in the UK (outside the USS) for which no funding was provided by your employer, would not meet the "based on work" stipulation. That was the first time I have seen that, and I can't comment on the validity of that assertion. Unfortunately I can't recall who said it, or excatly when but it was quite recent, within the past 6-12 months, I think.

Interesting, as l just read a WEP article on Forbes.com, which says private pensions do not count at all. I don’t know whether this means SSA still require all pension information for its records.

I'd be very wary about accepting information regarding WEP from anyone other than an expert in the matters of WEP. Awareness of the existence of WEP and how it works is not common in the US, and understanding of the specific intricacies of how WEP works at the margins of the rules, is even rarer. So even an experienced journalist writing in a well respected and generally accurate publication may have either [1] got some of the details wrong, and/ or [2] not noted the circumstances required to make the rules work the way the journalist describes them.

Well said, totally agree.

Your Social Security retirement or
disability benefits may be reduced

The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) can affect how
Social Security calculates your retirement or disability
benefit. If you work for an employer who doesn’t withhold
Social Security taxes from your salary, any retirement
or disability pension you get from that work can reduce
your Social Security benefits. Such an employer may be
a government agency or an employer in another country.

https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10045.pdf