<prompt> Human: This falls under the Windfall Elimination Provision. To me, a 29 contribution to her retirement account sounds like it would more than make up for the loss in social security. But I am a layman and all the charts and calculators Ive found on the SS site are confusing. Is there some way to figure out how much she would lose in Social Security per year?  <response>: Anecdotal make-of-it-what-you-will experience:I was employed by a university in Ohio that was covered by the _Ohio State Teachers Retirement_ system. At one point, there was an option to switch to Social Security, but I was advised that I should stick with the Ohio plan, because I would be vested at 7.5 years, and I would have guaranteed eligibility for health insurance in retirement. So I took the bait and stayed long enough to get vested.Then I moved out of state and taught at another university for awhile, moved again and have been at the same university for 20 years semi-retired since 2009. I had originally planned to retire about 10 years ago, but the _Ohio State Teachers Retirement System_ abruptly changed their rules and added 10 more years to the eligibility for vesting and eliminated the health insurance option for people in my category. I was covered by my husbands health insurance and will continue to be covered as long as he is alive, but I took a risk by retiring before age 65, because i would have had to pay for a Cobra policy in the interim and then my own Medicare Part B if my husband died first. Hes still alive, so that gamble paid off.So, in retrospect, I would have been better off paying into Social Security during those years. The current calculation for Social Security retirement benefits is spread over 35 years, so if as is typical for stay-at-home-parents there are years when income varies widely, it is still possible to increase benefits a bit by working part-time after starting to draw benefits. In my case, I started paying into Social Security at age 9, because my parents wanted me to understand the system, fwiw. Also, Social Security has coverage for other situations besides retirement. If there are children, and one parent dies, or if there are disabilities that are not covered by other insurance, Social Security is there. Those are only a few examples.I will also mention that, at least in the university where I am still employed, I was able to make very large 403B contributions and receive matching funds in addition to paying into Social Security. There iswas? evidently a Federal rule that any benefit offered to the people at the top of the heap also has to be offered to the people at the bottom of the heap. Also, I had an SEP account for free-lance work and both my husband and I contributed the maximum allowable to IRAs. So a mix of funds in addition to Social Security provided us with a nice retirement, even if the _Ohio State Teachers Retirement System_ broke their promises to me. 