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The pension pays more per year. Social Security has the COLA. The answer is in the details.
Teachers, firefighters, and state workers face a genuine fork: a pension-system job that skips Social Security, or a covered job that pays into it. The pension math looks strong — 30 years at a 2% multiplier on a $70,000 salary is $42,000 a year, versus about $31,350 from Social Security at full retirement age on the same salary. But the details flip it around: most pensions have weak or no cost-of-living adjustment while Social Security's CPI COLA compounds; joint survivorship costs 10–20% off the pension; and leaving before vesting can mean your contributions back with no benefit at all. Since the Fairness Act repealed WEP/GPO, mixing careers carries no penalty — the strongest play is often a pension career plus enough covered work to lock your 40 Social Security credits. This calculator prices both paths at your numbers.
Early-career teachers and state workers use it at the job-offer fork: the pension wins the income line but loses on COLA, portability, and survivorship — and post-repeal the pension-plus-covered-side-gig play locks Medicare credits for free.
Usually on the income line — a 30-year career at a 2% multiplier replaces 60% of final salary, while Social Security replaces roughly 40% for a mid-earner. But the pension number is nominal: with a 0–2% COLA (many systems) versus Social Security's full CPI adjustment, a pension that starts 35% higher can cross below the SS path by year 15–20 of retirement in an inflationary stretch. Survivorship is the other gap: SS pays a surviving spouse up to 100% automatically; pension survivor coverage means electing a joint annuity that cuts your benefit 10–20% while you're both alive.
Probably nothing good. Vesting is typically 5 years (10 in some older systems) — leave before that and most systems return your contributions, sometimes with minimal interest, and the employer's share evaporates. Even vested, a pension you leave at 35 doesn't grow with salary inflation; the "final average salary" is frozen at your departure pay, so a benefit computed on a 2026 salary pays out at 2040 retirement with 14 years of zero wage growth. Pensions reward staying; Social Security credits follow you to every covered job in the country.
Yes, and post-Fairness-Act it's clean. WEP and GPO are repealed (retroactive to January 2024), so covered work no longer gets discounted because of a pension. The strategy: pension career plus covered side work (summer jobs, adjunct covered gigs, a second career) until you have 40 credits — about 10 years — which also unlocks premium-free Medicare Part A. Every covered dollar now counts at full value on top of the pension. The old advice ("don't bother, WEP will eat it") is dead — update anyone still repeating it.