DEAR RUSTY: I now get a Railroad Pension from my ex-husband. I did not know it was from the Social Security Administration. I want to collect my SS benefits and my Railroad pension. Can I do that? I do not understand why I cannot collect both. — Railroad Ex-spouse

DEAR RAILROAD EX-SPOUSE: Railroad pension benefits and Social Security benefits are fully coordinated — that is, your Railroad pension payment from your ex-spouse already includes your earned Social Security retirement benefit. That’s because the two government agencies (the RRB — Railroad Retirement Board — and Social Security Administration) work together and pay your benefits in one single payment, usually managed by the RRB if some of your benefit includes a railroad pension component.

The RRB and SSA are two separate government agencies, but they fully coordinate benefits for beneficiaries.

This is exactly the same as if you were collecting regular SS ex-spouse benefits (instead of RR benefits) from your ex-husband; your personal SS retirement benefit is always paid first, and you receive an additional amount (a spousal boost) from your ex-husband. In your case, your “spousal boost” is the difference between your personally earned SS retirement benefit at your full retirement age (FRA) and half of your ex-husbands Tier I Railroad retirement benefit amount at his full retirement age.

A railroad pension usually consists of two pieces — a Tier I benefit and a Tier II benefit, with Tier I benefits being the equivalent of the pensioner’s Social Security.

Your ex-spouse benefits under the RRB are handled the same way. The two agencies fully coordinate with each other, evaluate your SS entitlement, and then reduce the amount of your RRB Tier I ex-spouse benefit by your SS retirement amount and pay both amounts together. In this way, you only get one payment, consisting of both your earned SSA component and the RRB component. And whenever there is a railroad component, the RRB (Railroad Retirement Board) is usually responsible for making pension payments.

(Russell Gloor is a national Social Security advisor at the AMAC Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Association of Mature American Citizens.)