Q: I am 67 years old. I signed up for Social Security a couple years ago. But I’m getting a little bored and I’m thinking of going back to work. If I do that, friends said that I will I lose my Social Security. Is this true?

A: You will NOT lose your Social Security. In fact, if anything, your monthly benefit will eventually increase.

Two Social Security regulations come into play in your case. One prevents you from “losing” your Social Security. The other leads to your potential benefit rate hike.

The first regulation exempts you from the normal earnings penalty provisions of the law. The law generally says that if you go back to work after you’re on Social Security, the government must deduct one dollar from your Social Security benefits for every two dollars you earn over $13,560 annually.

The rules have always exempted folks over age 70 from this penalty. But a few years back, Congress lowered the exemption age to the so-called “full retirement age.”

That’s a floating number that can be any month between age 65 and 67, depending on your date of birth. But the full retirement age is 66 for most folks who have retired in the past several years.

In other words, because you are over age 66, the government doesn’t care how much money you make. Even if Microsoft hires you as Bill Gates’s replacement with a starting salary somewhere in the seven-figure range, you won’t lose a nickel of your Social Security.

The second regulation that impacts you is one that says your monthly Social Security benefit is never frozen in place. There are usually two ways a Social Security benefit can go up. One is the annual cost-of-living adjustment , or COLA, that everyone automatically receives each January.

But the other way a Social Security benefit can increase is through extra outside income you earn after retirement. When you started your Social Security benefit, the rate was based on your average monthly wage using a 35-year wage base. In other words, they took your highest 35 years worth of earnings and determined what your average monthly wage was over that period. Your Social Security retirement benefit is a percentage — usually about 40 percent — of that figure.

But every year, the Social Security Administration looks at your earnings record to see if there are any new wages to factor into your computation. If there are, they refigure your benefit with the additional earnings. If those earnings increase your average monthly wage, they will in turn increase your monthly Social Security benefit.

This entire earnings reappraisal operation is automatic. Monthly benefit increases usually show up around June of the following year. So, if you took a job this year, 2008, and your earnings are high enough to increase your overall average wage, you should get a boost in your monthly Social Security benefit by June 2009.

By the way, average benefit increases due to extra wages earned by a Social Security recipient are in the $20 per month range.

Q: I am on Social Security and I recently remarried. Is it true my new wife will have to wait 10 years before she can collect any of my Social Security?

A: No. The 10-year “duration of marriage” rule applies in divorce cases. In other words, if you had an ex-wife, she would have to have been married to you for at least 10 years in order to be eligible for benefits as a divorced wife on your Social Security record.

In the case of newlyweds, the “duration of marriage” rule is usually nine months. So after you have been married for nine months, your new wife would be eligible for spousal benefits on your account — assuming she meets all the other eligibility requirements.

But there are a few exceptions to this rule. If you haven’t done so already, you should check with the Social Security Administration to find out if your wife can get benefits now.

To find out more about Tom Margenau and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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