I am currently drawing Social Security, my wife is still working as a teacher and will retire at the end of the school year. She will receive retirement payments from STRS (State Teacher Retirement System). She has paid about 10 quarters into Social Security, is she eligible to draw Social Security from my account? I have been told by Social Security that she can't but friends have told me that their wives, with similar situations do.

Hi,

If your wife receives a pension based on her work for a government (i.e. federal, state, local) agency where her wages were exempt from Social Security taxes, then any spousal benefits for which she would otherwise qualify would likely be offset by 2/3rds of the amount of her government pension. That could reduce her spousal rate to zero depending on the relative amounts of her spousal benefit rate and her government pension amount. For more information on the Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision and it's exceptions, refer to the following Social Security publication: https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10007.pdf.

Best, Jerry