WHAT’S THE FIGHT ABOUT?

It is about repealing a law; the Social Security Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision (GPO/WEP) that deprives thousands of their full Social Security benefit (GPO/WEP).  For detailed information, go to www.nea.org/socsec/offsets.

It is a fight for teachers, police officers, firefighters and railroad workers to get their FULL Social Security retirement benefit. At this time, these public servants get only about 40% of what they earned.  In other words, the government keeps about 60% of their retirement benefit!   How does this happen?

Present Social Security laws require that any public servant who has paid Social Security taxes cannot receive their full benefits if they move to a state where these professions do not pay such taxes. 

When they retire, they may receive their full government retirement benefit, but only about forty percent of their Social Security benefit.  Oh, and if their spouse dies and he or she has been in the same situation, the living spouse will only receive some forty percent of his/her deceased’s Social Security retirement benefit as well.  So if you are planning to retire and are going to receive a government pension, calculate your math carefully - don’t count on your deceased spouse’s full Social Security benefit! 

In the beginning, the laws were designed to prevent anyone who did not pay Social Security taxes from receiving a Social Security retirement benefit check.  That makes sense, but Congress seemingly did not consider that people often moved from state to state and when someone retired in a state that did not pay Social Security taxes, a government employee would lose sixty percent of their benefit – regardless of how many credits they had previously earned.

In my case, I had earned a total of sixty-nine credits (you’re only required to have forty credits to receive a full benefit check) but it didn’t matter – I was subjected to a reduction in my benefit because I retired in a state where teachers did not pay Social Security taxes.  So for all of my working years that Social Security taxes were deducted from my paycheck – too bad – I just lose nearly 60% of that money!

Currently, the GPO/WEP reduces the income of some 300,000 people by more than $2,600 per year.  That’s enough to push many to the poverty level of subsistence, especially low-income women.