These bills will be alive in Congress for the next year and a half, so we have time to mount a major push to educate legislators about how wrong these offsets actually are. We need to make sure that the offsets are removed when Congress begins working on Social Security.

A couple of things to think about:

• The current members of the House of Representatives are the most junior group that has been on the Hill for a great many years. A very large number of them have only been in Washington for 1-3 terms. They may not know about the Offsets. They need to hear from us!
• Many employee groups have not made their voices heard despite the fact that they will be affected by the offsets.  We need to get them involved!

Please do this and forward it on to your friends:

Here is a link to a NEW email sender from the National Education Association that you can use to contact both your Congress Person and your Senators:

http://www.capwiz.com/nea/issues/alert/?alertid=62652316&type=CO

Don’t forget to also send hand-written notes to your legislators and their aides.  Sometimes they make more impact.  Phone calls asking for the Representative’s position are helpful. (If they tell you what their position is, for or against our bills, please let us know, so we can keep track.)

Thank you for being firm and persistent!

If your Congress Person is on this list of those who signed up by May 8th to co-sponsor HR 1795, be sure to thank them!

Rep Chu, Judy [CA-27] – 5/8/2013

Rep Hahn, Janice [CA-44] – 5/6/2013

Rep Hanna, Richard L. [NY-22] – 5/6/2013

Rep Huffman, Jared [CA-2] – 5/8/2013

Rep Joyce, David P. [OH-14] – 5/8/2013

Rep Larsen, Rick [WA-2] – 5/6/2013

Rep Loebsack, David [IA-2] – 5/6/2013

Rep Lofgren, Zoe [CA-19] – 5/8/2013

Rep Lujan, Ben Ray [NM-3] – 5/8/2013

Rep Michaud, Michael H. [ME-2] – 5/6/2013

Rep Pingree, Chellie [ME-1] – 5/6/2013

Rep Runyan, Jon [NJ-3] – 5/8/2013

Rep Ruppersberger, C. A. Dutch [MD-2] – 5/8/2013

Rep Schiff, Adam B. [CA-28] – 4/26/2013

Rep Shea-Porter, Carol [NH-1] – 5/6/2013

Rep Sires, Albio [NJ-8] – 5/8/2013

Rep Swalwell, Eric [CA-15] – 5/8/2013

Rep Thompson, Glenn [PA-5] – 5/6/2013

Rep Titus, Dina [NV-1] – 5/8/2013

Rep Tsongas, Niki [MA-3] – 5/6/2013

Rep Vargas, Juan [CA-51] – 5/6/2013

The post Action Alert # 54 – Now We Have a New Senate Bill — S. 896! appeared first on Social Security Fairness.

Urge your Representative to support and co-sponsor the bill to end GPO and WEP, and restore Social Security fairness! This is easy!  Go to www.house.gov, find their website and bookmark it. Take a few minutes to call or email them and let them know you are expecting their support. Repeat this process every month.

We need remind them constantly of this problem.

TAKE ACTION TODAY to Support HR 1795!  Thank you!

The post Action Alert # 53 – We Have a New House Bill!– HR 1795 appeared first on Social Security Fairness.

Every one of the 53 CA Congressional Offices was visited, nearly all of them with formal appointments on April 3.  In addition, on April 4th and 5th, three members of Social Security Fairness went to an additional six members of the Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee and left information. We left information at another 22 offices of the members of the Senate Finance Committee (the Ways and Means counterpart in the Senate) and a few others.  Some of these visits were requested by our members, and the list of Senators we visited is at the bottom of this Alert.  Also, attached, is the 4-page packet we left in the offices.

A number of offices also were given hand-signed petitions for repeal from the Congress Person’s own constituents.  The online “petition” that is on our website is actually a method of sending emails directly to legislators and were sent when you signed that form. (Nearly 15,700 letters sent so far!)  While leaving the packets we were able to talk to aides in 7 different Senate offices, finding some for the repeal and some against it.

Useful things we learned:

1.  There are some strong forces, including NEA, working out a plan to re-introduce the repeal bills.  Timing is important as are the details.  We hope to see some new bills soon.

2.  The worst thing we heard is that the cost to get rid of the offsets is the same as will be “saved” by instituting the Chained CPI.  Neither will make much of a difference in the big picture. (less than 2% of annual payments)

3.   The most useful thing we heard was that many staff members, even those with years of experience on “The Hill,” do not understand how the offsets actually affect people.  Our job is to fix that.

SUPPORT ACTION REQUESTED NOW:

Prepare your best letter and use it over and over. Mention the hardship that the Offsets have caused you, specifically, using dollar amounts if you wish, and also show them why much of the thought process behind the GPO/WEP is faulty.  Write to the person in your Representative or Senator’s office who is in charge of Social Security questions, when possible.  When explaining the faulty reasoning behind the GPO/WEP you may find a complete list of ideas in the attachment or select from the list below.

We recommend using these points when writing your Senator or Representative’s office.

1.  You were never told before you retired, either by your employer or by the SSA, that the statements you got for years were not representing the amount of money you would get as a benefit. (The law to inform employees did not affect anyone hired before Jan. 1, 2005)

2.   Although there have been some public employment situations where employees have had the choice to contribute to Social Security as well as their public pension, you had no choice whether or not to pay into Social Security. (Many people in Washington know that Federal employees in the 1980’s could choose to stay in their current retirement system and not pay into SS or join FERS and pay into both the Federal Employee Retirement System and Social Security, earning both pensions.

3.   The amount you lose to the WEP makes no sense based on your public pension amount and work history. (Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas has developed a formula that is more accurate, but it is also very complex.)  People who have studied this issue know that it is wrong.  It is based on a guess, rather than recent hard data.

4.   The GPO was not meant to cause dependants to lose ALL of their earned spousal or survivor benefits.  Changes in wages in the past 30 years have distorted the formula—a short career negates many years of dependency.  If you do get your own SS benefits they will be reduced each year by 2/3 of any cost of living increase in your public pension.

5.  Both Offsets have an unequal effect on women, and exacerbate the male/female wage gap.  Of the nearly 568,000 penalized by the GPO, 80% are women and, of those, 74% lose their entire Social Security benefit. In addition, women often have lower level wages and a shorter work career, which gives them a smaller Social Security retirement benefit based on their own work, and then that benefit is also cut by the WEP. This is a case of double jeopardy!

6. WEP fails to consider that some workers have earned only Social Security and no additional pension for part of their career.  Some employers provide no pension system and some pensions require a specific number of years before becoming vested. Therefore, because people change employers, lose their jobs before pensions are vested, or work for employers with no pension system, many people receive no separate pension contributions other than Social Security from their employers. Even though these workers may eventually qualify for a public pension in addition to Social Security, they will be deprived of some of the only retirement benefits they received for many of their working years. Their Social Security, and their retirement income will be calculated on a partial lifetime of work, rather than their full lifetime of work, thereby substantially reducing their future standard of living.

House Ways and Means members offices visited:

Doggett TX, Griffin AR, Sam Johnson TX, Kelly PA, Schwartz PA, Schock IL

Senate offices visited:  (*offices where we spoke to policy aides)

Begich*, Bennett, Boxer*, Brown, Carper, Cornyn, Feinstein*, Graham, Cantwell, Enzi, Hatch*, McCaskill, Mikulski, Murkowski, Rockefeller, Nelson, Portman*, Rubio*, Stabenow, Toomey, Warren*, Whitehouse.

We have received support from retirees in nearly every state in the Union. Thanks to all of you who have been acting on the Alerts and who have continued to bring this issue to the attention of Congress in a positive manner.  As we join together to fight for repeal we would like to clarify that unless people have given permission, it is not our policy to share private emails. This is a long, hard battle and we respect everyone who has tried to right this wrong from whatever position they are in, including both elected and association officials.

The post ALERT #52 – Washington D.C. Report and What We Can Do Now appeared first on Social Security Fairness.

A large number of these CalRTA members also belong to our Social Security Fairness lobbying group, and a team of us from SSFairness will be visiting the offices of other important legislators on the Hill throughout the week.

It is easy to help us!

1. Please sign the resolution/petition that is on the right side of our homepage on our website. (please scroll down a bit)

www.ssfairness.com

Join the more than 5,000 signatures that are already on there! Send it to all your friends and family—this is something that hurts you financially. There is also a link to put it on Facebook. Share it with all of your organizations.

This could be the biggest petition, yet!

2. Let us know at ssfairness@gmail.com if you want us to visit your legislator’s office. (Give us their name and your state district number.) We will hand deliver a packet of information.

3. Are you planning to talk to your Congress Person? Check out Alert #50, “Make an Appointment”:

http://www.ssfairness.com/action-alert-50-make-an-appointment-with-your-congress-member/

Or look at ssfairness.com for links to helpful ideas for talking to your Representative. We always post our Alerts to our website, so you can catch up on what you might have missed.

As crazy as things are in Congress these days, we must make sure that our voices are still heard! Please do something now!

Thank you!

The post Action Alert # 51 – The Time to Take Action to Back Us Up is NOW! appeared first on Social Security Fairness.

It is a great time to meet with your Congressional Representative in person during their recess, from March 24 – April 5. Some professional organizations, such as the California Retired Teachers Association, will have a team of members in Washington to talk in person to staff members responsible for advising on Social Security policy, or to any Congress Members who remain in D.C. But, there is a better chance you can meet with your Rep. when he/she is back home!

1. Rep Contact Info:
For your Rep’s website with their office phone go to: www.house.gov and put your zip code in the upper right corner.
Notice which District you are in CA 9, TX 4, etc. Your District may have changed this year.
Get a friend, fellow Offset victim, or family member to go with you to help make the case that you have been severely wronged.
Make the appointment!

2. Know your Rep’s Position on last GPO/WEP bill.
http://capwiz.com/nea/issues/bills/?bill=39298516&cs_party=all&cs_status=all&cs_state=ALL If your Representative is new to Congress, they may not even have heard about the GPO and WEP. It is also possible that continuing Members, even those who “co-sponsored” it do not fully understand the issues. We are waiting for a new bill to support, the last repeal bills died in the last “Congress.” ( A “Congress” lasts for two years. Bills have that period of time to be passed, and if they aren’t, they die and must be re-introduced in the next session. We have just begun the 113th Congress)

3. Begin to think about what you will say.
The most important part is your story. What has happened to you, to your savings and what you think is unfair. Think about how many years you or your spouse paid Social Security taxes and how much that has totaled? How much have you lost in earned benefits?

4. Plan your discussion points to back up your story.

We recommend viewing the two PowerPoint presentations on our website, one on the “Home” page and one on the “Our Case” page. In addition, we have prepared a handout called “Our Case” which lists the reasons the GPO/WEP are wrong. If you wish further details, this can be found on the “More Information” page. Next week we will send more detailed information about making your case, but please begin by making an appointment!

Useful links:
Our website: http://www.ssfairness.com
California Retired Teachers Association’s information for Lobby Day: http://div23.calrta.org/state/res_doc.html
National Education Association’s Social Security Offsets page:
http://www.nea.org/home/16491.htm

Emphasize the imprecise complexities of these offsets and how they must be repealed for a just Social Security system.

Righting this wrong may cost as much as $10 Billion a year, but that is less than 2% of what Social Security pays out in benefits each year.
We will persevere!

The post Action Alert #50 – Make an Appointment with Your Congress Member! appeared first on Social Security Fairness.

This year we will continue to educate and influence legislators, increase the number of our allied activist groups, support a legal challenge to the GPO and WEP, and, of course, increase our membership base and our Facebook numbers. You can help!

Spread the word “We paid the money, we earned the benefits!”

1. Contact Congress, again! New Members of Congress and Senators need to learn about our issue; old members need to know that we are still out here.

We are working with a major supporter, the California Retired Teachers Association, in making a big push for legislator contact. CalRTA Washington WEPGPO Lobby Day is Wednesday, April 3. If you can’t be in D.C., make a local appointment with your Representative for that week or the last week of March. See link below for more info about the CalRTA initiative: http://calrta.org/2013-wepgpo-lobby-day/

We will publish more about contacting legislators and back this up with a letter-writing campaign. You can always reach them at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.

2. Contact and inform powerful groups that are already working to make Social Security stronger. Many people in these groups aren’t aware of how unfairly we are treated or have declined to stick up for us. Some think we were able to choose whether or not to pay FICA taxes. Can you contact AARP, Alliance for Retired Americans, Strengthen Social Security, NARFE, NCPSSM, or any other senior activist group? What is your union doing? Eighty percent of those affected by the GPO are women; 75% lose ALL their benefits. This is a women’s issue! Where are AAUW, Delta Kappa Gamma, NOW, National Partnership for Women and Children?

3. Help work toward a legal challenge of GPO/WEP

A legal challenge! An enthusiastic supporter of repeal, Ric Robson, found us online and is working to discover ways that the offsets may be vulnerable to the right legal case. If you like to read legal briefs, have some good ideas or even have a GPO/WEP story that is particularly compelling, contact him at ricrobson@yahoo.com

4. Tell your story to more family and friends.

Show them the explanatory PowerPoints on our website. Ask them to join our Alert list and our Facebook page. Do you know a group of employees who will be affected when they retire? Let them know how badly their retirement will be cut, and then send them to ssfairness.com, so they can work for change.

Thank you for your support and your stories!

The post Action Alert #49 – Where We Go From Here appeared first on Social Security Fairness.

Please call or email your legislators (www.house.gov, www.senate.gov) and the President (http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact). Tell them:

Social Security is not a toy!

Don’t use it to make a political deal. Don’t give people who make $500K a year a tax break and cut Soc. Security earnings for people who earn $50K!  Social Security doesn’t need to be cut to balance the federal budget! The program needs an independent overhaul including the repeal of the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision!

It is a busy time, but please take a few minutes to make your voice heard on this issue. Thanks!

MORE INFO:

Here is a link to an article which explains the current proposal:

Five sticking points in the fiscal cliff deal

Here is part of an article by Mike Konczal which talks about the importance of Social Security for American retirees at different levels of income:

This is not a program that just helps the destitute; it provides a broad level of income security in old age for the majority of retirees. The average elderly family receiving Social Security gets 58.2 percent of their income from the program. A quarter of families get 90 percent or more of their income from Social Security. Once you leave the top income quintile, Social Security is the major source of retirement security. It is hard to see how means-testing these across-the-board cuts will be sufficient to prevent this from having a serious impact on our most vulnerable.

Link to the whole article:

How Do the Elderly Spend Money and the Difficulty of Protecting Against Social Security Cuts

An angry Facebook response to the Prsident from one of our followers:

Pres. Obama, I campaigned for you, I donated to your campaign and I voted for you twice. I also studied Simpson-Bowles and Domenici-Rivlin so I know about the chained CPI and the harm it can do cumulatively to seniors, especially women who live the longest and usually rely more on social security. Women, especially single women, were your biggest supporters. If you agree to using C-CPI, you are betraying us. The rate of inflation for seniors is actually higher than the regular CPI because of higher health care costs which rise faster than the average rate of inflation. You must not cave on this. Work on CPI-E, the experimental inflation rate for seniors. Cut Medicare costs by bargaining directly with the Pharma companies.

Raise the ceiling on FICA contributions. Don’t use chained CPI. Don’t cave and betray us.

The post Action Alert #48 – Social Security is Not a Toy! appeared first on Social Security Fairness.

Changes in how retirement payments are calculated and how much workers should contribute need to be studied and carefully planned. Using Social Security as a political football is exactly how the Government Pension offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision were created in the first place. We can’t let them weaken Social Security again! Decisions that affect the well-being of millions of older Americans now and in the future should be made on their own merits with plenty of open discussion to discover unintended consequences—not in backroom political deals.

There are a number of groups planning protests on Monday, demanding that Social Security be kept off the fiscal cliff, as well as other issues. Here is a link to one that Moveon is organizing with different demonstrations including various groups around the country. It is easy to find one that may be near you:

http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/index.html?rc=homepage&action_id=300

Attached is a sign you can print out onto regular letter-sized paper if you want to join others in protest on the streets. (print two and attach them back to back to a wooden paint stirrer, and you’ve got a sign) Remember, you are educating others about the Offsets while you protest. Here is a link to some of the handouts on our website that you can give to people.

Otherwise, just keep on hitting your Congress members with your insistence that they repeal the GPO and WEP! Don’t cut Social Security! Make it stronger and make it FAIR!

Thank you!!!

FYI: Here is the Alliance for Retired Americans’ summary of where things were at the end of this past week:

Fiscal Cliff Talks Continue as Republicans Put a Plan on the Table
House GOP leaders endorsed a debt-reduction plan on Monday that would raise tax collections by $800 billion over the next decade, but they refused to budge on higher tax rates for the wealthy. Boehner outlined the proposal in a Monday letter to President Obama in which he said the GOP will not support any plan that increases tax rates.

Boehner is using the plan of Erskine Bowles, a co-chair of President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, as the basis for the Republican plan. The plan would gradually increase the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, and implement a less generous formula for calculating cost of living adjustments in Social Security – the “Chained CPI.”.

President Obama’s proposal, introduced in late November, raises taxes on the wealthiest 2%, fixes the Medicare “doc fix” for physician payments, provides stimulus and mortgage refinance funding, and extends unemployment insurance. It calls for $1.6 trillion in new tax revenue, $50 billion in stimulus funds and effectively ends Congressional control over the debt ceiling.

We need to keep reminding them that now is not the time to meddle with Social Security. Yes, the system needs a major overhaul, including getting rid of the GPO/WEP, but that must be done at a time when we aren’t hanging over the edge of a cliff!

The post Action Alert #47 – Keep Social Security Off the Fiscal Cliff! appeared first on Social Security Fairness.

If you haven’t yet bookmarked your two Senators or your Member of Congress, find them on these websites:

http://www.house.gov/ (put in your Zip Code to find your Representative) 
http://www.senate.gov/ (put in your state to find your Senator)

Call them or email them. (Letters take too long to go through security) Please get at least three of your family members or friends to do this also. Now is the time! Tell your own story or use the words below.

The Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision were stuck into the last Social Security reform laws without careful consideration. They are BAD law. Don’t let Congress mess up Social Security again—fix it by raising the Cap on payroll deductions and repealing the GPO and WEP!

Repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision, a poorly-designed law, which cuts a higher percentage of Social Security benefits for low and middle-income workers than it does for high-income earners. (see CRS Report 1/29/2010)

Eliminate the Government Pension Offset, which heavily penalizes more women than men.  It penalizes in two ways.  First, the GPO takes away earned Social Security spousal benefits from those who have stayed home to care for children if they have even a short governmental or teaching career later in life.  In addition, many of those affected receive NONE of their spouse’s normal Social Security survivor benefits after that spouse dies.

These offsets are unconscionable! Fixing Social Security must include eliminating these cruel and unfair political attacks on public service workers. Less than 2% of Social Security’s annual expenditures would be involved!

Thank you for responding to this urgent call to action!

The post Action Alert #46 – Support Our Citizen Lobbyists NOW! appeared first on Social Security Fairness.

Is the person you are voting for on record to strengthen Social Security without cutting hard-earned benefits? If part of FICA taxes go into private investment accounts, there will be less money to pay for the REPEAL of the GPO/WEP.

Many of our government agency pension funds took huge losses when the market crashed in 2008 because their financial managers invested in improperly rated investments. The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill demands greater clarity for investors.

Do the people you are voting for support Dodd-Frank and more transparency on Wall Street?

Your pension depends on it!

Check to see if your members of the House and Senate supported our Social Security Fairness bills this year:

For the House Members:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr1332

For the Senate:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/s2010

Thank you!

Here is a story from one of our new members—you are not alone!

I worked and paid my 40 quarters into Social Security. When my Air Force husband was transferred to Louisiana, I resumed my teaching career. No one mentioned that I would lose Social Security benefits if I continued teaching in Louisiana. Upon nearing retirement, I learned that the government would steal from me the money I had paid into the program.

Even worse than losing my own Social Security, the government will not allow me to collect my husband’s benefits should he predecease me. After serving in the U.S. military for 22 years and paying into Social Security all of his adult life, he learns that is wife cannot benefit from his service to his country. And, by the way, as an Air Force wife, I feel I have served my country as well. How can this action possibly be constitutional?

I’m not asking for anything more than what my husband and I have earned. I don’t expect to receive compensation for the years I did not pay into they system. But, I do deserve to collect what I have contributed. If nothing else, I should be refunded the money I have contributed with interest.

I find this law completely and totally un-American. The unfairness doesn’t just anger me, it breaks my heart. I never dreamed my government would treat my family with such disrespect.

The post Action Alert #45 – Vote Like Your Pension Depends on It! appeared first on Social Security Fairness.