S.S.
I'm a teacher, going back to be a nurse. I plan to cash out my TRS benefits fairly soon, unless I go back to work for the state after school, to avoid this. You can't avoid it at retirement by doing it though, so no advice there - other than to suggest that you work in a state where teachers pay social security.
Your dependent benefits (widower/disability) are offset by the amount of your pension... private or your own social security benefits.
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10007.html
I don't especially find this unfair because it treats a private retirement (TRS) like a public retirement (Social Security Self Benefit).
Here is how the windfall elimination affects what you earned in the private sector:
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10045.html
If you have 30 years of private employment with substantial earnings - currently set at just under 20k, then the private sector offset doesn't affect you at all.
I want to reitterate - social security was never intended to fund people's retirement. It was supposed to keep people too old to work fed and warm for 5 - 10 years, when they were expected to die.
Which also explains why a fellow student, who does not work and collects free housing (section 8 - $740 a month), free food ($600 a month for her, two girls, and their dad - who no longer lives with them), free daycare (workforce - $650 a month), free school (Pell), a new car (student loans) and blackberry and cigarettes (sells foodstamps) while my husband and I drive an 8 year old car and work full time while paying for my school and daycare with student loans for the same degree, because his $2250 a month salary (before he pays his ex $600 in child support and $300 in health insurance) puts us $50 a month over qualifying for the same free assistance but honor demands that he support his kids ... so our taxes pay for hers instead.
Social security. :)
Ha.