Maine Shipyard Training Offers $500 Weekly as 63-Year-Old Weighs Social Security and Unemployment
Updated
Updated · 24/7 Wall St. · Aug 7
Maine Shipyard Training Offers $500 Weekly as 63-Year-Old Weighs Social Security and Unemployment
1 articles · Updated · 24/7 Wall St. · Aug 7
Summary
$500 a week in Bath Iron Works training could complicate a laid-off 63-year-old machinist’s benefits, even though Maine generally does not reduce unemployment because someone receives Social Security.
Social Security’s earnings test counts job wages and self-employment income, not unemployment benefits, pensions or Social Security itself, so any later shipyard paycheck—not the benefit claim alone—would drive withholding.
Maine’s immediate question is whether the three-week course qualifies as approved training, because unemployment claimants usually must stay available for work and keep weekly job-search activity unless they get a waiver.
If the interview leads to a job, annual earnings above the limit for workers below full retirement age can stop some monthly Social Security checks, though the special monthly rule may still protect earlier fully retired months.
At full retirement age, withheld benefits are folded into a higher future monthly payment rather than repaid in a lump sum, while new wages could also replace a lower year in his 35-year earnings record.