Social Security as Expat

[kenmoremmm]

I'm a US citizen that spent my entire life in the US up to age 41. We moved to Canada that year and plan to stay here for at least another 15 years. I see that the SSA sent out an email stating that I could look at my Social Security statement, so I logged on and downloaded. Despite working in Canada full time, I see that my income for 2021 only show my US income, and that there is zero income shown for 2022 or 2023. As a result of this, my eligible payments at retirement age have plunged because of averaging out the last 40 quarters.

Does anyone have experience with this? I know that there are treaties between the US and Canada on SSA / OAS, but I'm curious how it's actually handled. If I pull the plug from work in a few years while in Canada, I might only have 5 years of work history within Canada at that point in time, suggesting to me that whatever OAS I would be eligible for will be minimal. Meanwhile, the SS payments will continue to drop.

Thanks

[GilesMM]

Umm, unless your Canadian employer withheld American SS from your paycheck and sent it to the SSA, I don't think your wages there will get you any SS benefits.  Perhaps you can join the Canadian scheme to make up the difference?

[reeshau]

The only way to be sure is to check the tax treaty.

I will say, this is how it works for my experience in Ireland:  I worked there in 3 calendar years.  If I had worked for 5 years, I would qualify for an Irish state pension.  If I had done so, US Social Security would actually decrease by a small amount due to that Irish pension.  However, since I did not, I will get some credit from my Irish working years, added to US SS.  This is not a 1:1 situation or according to the US formula; it's more related to the money Ireland withheld from my paycheck.  It will definitely not be equal to if I worked in the US for that time.

This is all fine with me.  While I loved my time in Ireland, I'm happy not to have my finances perpetually entangled there.

[NorthernIkigai]

Yeah, I've worked in a couple of EU countries, and the idea is here that you get your separate state pensions from each country. However, as this is all far in the future, and it's not a huge amount of money anyway as it was only a few years and my salaries were crap, I'm not bothering looking into this until much later if ever.

There must be a whole bunch of people exactly in the position you are in, OP. You should contact both the US and the Canadan authorities to ask about this, but it makes sense that you don't get more out of a particular system than you have been paying into that system.

[FIRE Artist]

I'm a US citizen that spent my entire life in the US up to age 41. We moved to Canada that year and plan to stay here for at least another 15 years. I see that the SSA sent out an email stating that I could look at my Social Security statement, so I logged on and downloaded. Despite working in Canada full time, I see that my income for 2021 only show my US income, and that there is zero income shown for 2022 or 2023. As a result of this, my eligible payments at retirement age have plunged because of averaging out the last 40 quarters.

Does anyone have experience with this? I know that there are treaties between the US and Canada on SSA / OAS, but I'm curious how it's actually handled. If I pull the plug from work in a few years while in Canada, I might only have 5 years of work history within Canada at that point in time, suggesting to me that whatever OAS I would be eligible for will be minimal. Meanwhile, the SS payments will continue to drop.

Thanks

Since US social security is based on how much you put into it, I think the equivalent in Canada is actually our Canadian Pension Plan, so you need to take that into account when thinking of the drop in your SSA, and there is no time limit or residency requirement to be eligible, you only have to have paid into the system.  OAS is more like a welfare type of payment, if you want to get it after you leave Canada you have to have lived in Canada for at least 20 years after your 18th birthday, for those wanting to draw it while living in Canada, the threshold is only 10 years.  There is no reciprocal deals with CPP and other countries as far as I know, our OAS is typically what is used in those agreements, but compared to the US SSA, it is really very little money. 

[AMandM]

My father is a US citizen who spent most of his working life in Canada, and moved back to the States in his old age, many years after retiring. He gets his CPP, but no American SS--and he has to pay for his Medicare premiums. Just as he didn't work in the US enough to pay into SSA enough to get benefits, he didn't pay enough into Medicare for his premiums to be covered.

[reeshau]

Here is AARP's take on it:

https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/questions-answers/work-abroad-transfer-foreign-credits.html

[GilesMM]

My father is a US citizen who spent most of his working life in Canada, and moved back to the States in his old age, many years after retiring. He gets his CPP, but no American SS--and he has to pay for his Medicare premiums. Just as he didn't work in the US enough to pay into SSA enough to get benefits, he didn't pay enough into Medicare for his premiums to be covered.

I worked "overseas" including five years in a country where my employer was required to make lavish payments to the local equivalent of SS, to the tune of about 30% of my salary.  After I moved away, I could apply to have the entire lump sum transferred to me.  A nice little bonus.

[AMandM]

My father is a US citizen who spent most of his working life in Canada, and moved back to the States in his old age, many years after retiring. He gets his CPP, but no American SS--and he has to pay for his Medicare premiums. Just as he didn't work in the US enough to pay into SSA enough to get benefits, he didn't pay enough into Medicare for his premiums to be covered.

I worked "overseas" including five years in a country where my employer was required to make lavish payments to the local equivalent of SS, to the tune of about 30% of my salary.  After I moved away, I could apply to have the entire lump sum transferred to me.  A nice little bonus.

Nice!
My father received his Canadian pension when he retired, and still does now that he's in the US, so I doubt he'd be eligible for a program like yours. At least, he ought not to be!

[Moustachienne]

There are reciprocal pension agreements between Canada and the US, explained here
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/publicpensions/cpp/cpp-international/united-states.html  Check under Resources lower on the page for the basic Agreement and its Supplementals.

"If you have not contributed to the pension program of the United States for the minimum period, under the Agreement, the United States will consider periods of contribution to the Canada Pension Plan as periods of contribution under the pension program of the United States."

[Scandium]

There are reciprocal pension agreements between Canada and the US, explained here
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/publicpensions/cpp/cpp-international/united-states.html  Check under Resources lower on the page for the basic Agreement and its Supplementals.

"If you have not contributed to the pension program of the United States for the minimum period, under the Agreement, the United States will consider periods of contribution to the Canada Pension Plan as periods of contribution under the pension program of the United States."

Well that sounds nice. So US SS asks for a "refund" from the Canadian system? Better than many other options.
I paid minimally into the pension system in my birth country before moving to the US. I haven't paid in since, so I basically get nothing for the years since I moved (which makes sense). I checked, and my expected payout is about $4,000 per year, at age 67. That'll be my beer-budget.

[reeshau]

That's my understanding of the agreement with Ireland, too.

My expectation is that I will have to push to get this cooperation to happen.  Also, I need to keep my documentation from Ireland beyond the normal 7-year limitation, in case I have to prove something / verify numbers.