UC Teaching Assistant wages not appearing on my Social Security earnings history (San Diego: credit)

[Those Who Squirm]

I worked one quarter as a teaching assistant while earning my master's degree at UCLA. It was only on a quarter-time basis and, IIRC, I got paid around ten dollars an hour, so it only worked out to $1000 or so all told.

For some reason this doesn't appear on my earnings record. I know it's not much, but because it was such a long time ago I was wondering if it would make any difference in my benefits, like if I'd opened a savings account back then and the bank neglected to pay interest on a very small part of it.

Or possibly UC doesn't deduct for Social Security, especially when the yearly amount is so low. Does anyone know?

[nightlysparrow]

If you have the W-2's from your taxes for that year, the SS office will change your records. Mistakes are made. Happened to me.

[marcopolo666]

You basically have two questions :

1- will this small amount make much of a difference? Not really. To find out how much of a difference it would make, go to the online retirement calculator (at : Retirement Estimator ). Where it *could* make a huge difference is if you were one year short of qualifying for benefits (retirement, disability, survivor benefits), and the earnings from that year put you over the top - you'd go from 'no benefits' to 'benefits'. Since SS uses the concept of Social Security credits , it could make a big difference.

2- Why isn't it on my earning record? UC used to have its own retirement/pension fund, and employees DID NOT contribute to SocSec (well, actually they had options, and chose what to do, but the default was 'contribute to pension, not SS'). I know that they did this back in the 1980s, because my sister worked at UC San Diego. So maybe you didn't contribute to SS at all.

[jbunniii]

https://grad.ucla.edu/gss/appm/feeremission.pdf

FICA WITHHOLDING
The student FICA tax exemption is applied in withholding on wage payments to graduate employees. If a graduate student employee (TA, GSR, etc.) carries six or more units during a given quarter and works less than 80% time, no FICA is deducted. Nonresident aliens on F1 or J1 visas who are pursuing the purpose for which their visa was issued, are exempt from FICA withholdings until they become substantially present in the United States (i.e., qualify as a US tax resident). Should the employee’s enrollment drop below the requisite number of units, FICA will begin to be deducted automatically from his/her paycheck. In addition, FICA will be withheld from wages in any month in which the number of days falling inside an instructional period is exceeded by the number of days falling outside of the instructional period; this situation often occurs during September and June.

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Originally Posted by jbunniii

https://grad.ucla.edu/gss/appm/feeremission.pdf

Well, there you have it. I was thinking that if the work was part of your financial aid package that that might be exempt somehow. And here it is thanks to jbunniii.