There were 7,143 signatures from irate Americans in 49 states before our “We the People” petition was closed.  We thank you all for that effort!  We know that many others tried and were unable to get onto the website. Despite this, the response from the White House—a letter from the leadership of the Social Security Administration explaining the offsets–was less than inadequate….

The National Education Association, who had helped publicize the petition and has had a major leadership position over the years fighting for repeal, called the response “disappointing.” They have expressed strong concern directly to the White House and have asked for clarification, since Obama had supported repeal of the GPO/WEP as a Senator and then as a candidate. We will wait for the White House response to NEA before deciding the appropriate action for us to take next.

In the meantime, we know that repeal of these unconscionable Offsets must make it through Congress.  Don’t despair!  The current House of Representatives still has more than 250 members who co-signed the Social Security Fairness bill during the last session.  The new bill, H.R. 1332, has 158 co-signers.  Your own member of Congress probably hasn’t signed on, yet.

You can use this link from NEA to check to see if they have co-signed signed and also to write them a letter. http://capwiz.com/nea/issues/bills/?bill=39298516&cs_party=all&cs_status=all&cs_state=ALL

Or find their website at www.house.gov to send them a direct email.

For the Senate bill, S. 2010, everyone has some work to do except Maine and New Jersey, where both Senators have co-sponsored.  Here are the 6 other current co-sponsors: Begich (AK), Brown (OH), Cantwell(WA), Johnson (SD), Lautenberg (NJ), Udall (NM).  John Kerry (MA) is the author of the bill.  Find your Senators at this website, and let them know that you are expecting them to show their support for repeal of the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision!    www.senate.gov

The GPO and WEP are unfair!  They cut or eliminate fully-earned Social Security benefits. Their effects often are harshest on the lowest income earners. The laws assume public pensions to be the same as Social Security even though the public pensions have been paid for at different rates and are often taxed differently. If a worker or spouse paid into Social Security, they should receive the same benefits as other US citizens who have also paid into separate pension systems.

Thank you!!!

AARP LINKS:

1.   Here is a link for the original AARP article asking for feedback.

2.   Here is a link to the “How Would You Strengthen Social Security…” survey   page.

3.   Email address for Barry Rand, the CEO of AARP:   CEO@aarp.org

ATTACHED SEE:

See Our Case for 12 good reasons why the GPO/WEP should be repealed.  Use these in your letters/emails.  These reasons are also provided in the form of a PowerPoint by SSFAIRNESS which you can view by clicking on the forward arrows at http://www.ssfairness.com/our-case/

AARP’s ARGUMENT WHICH WE NEED TO BE AWARE OF:

AARP says that the WEP and GPO are necessary to even the playing field to that of other Social Security recipients because:

Without the Windfall Elimination Provision, people who get non-contributing (to FICA) pensions look like they are very low income since they have no FICA contributions for the years they have worked in those government positions.  The system then would treat them as low-income workers and pay them proportionally more in retirement.   This is a problem in the way the SSA calculates pensions. Instead of fixing this problem, the SSA uses a different formula (the WEP) for non-contributing government employees, which reduces retirees’ benefits more than it should. The WEP is inaccurate and unfair!

Without the Government Pension Offset, dependent spouses get an amount equal to half of the contributing spouse’s retirement benefit.  Or, if a spouse has earned their own Social Security retirement benefits, they can receive their own benefits instead of the spousal benefits, whichever is more. They cannot receive both. The GPO treats non-contributing pensions as partial (2/3) SS income, in an attempt to make this equivalent to what happens to other SS-earning retirees.   The problem is that, with the GPO, the SSA adds in the non-contributing government pension as if it were additional Social Security income, therefore making people who have spent many years as dependent spouses ineligible for their spousal benefits if they have had even a relatively short career in non-contributing government service.  There is no valid reason to treat non-contributing government pensions from a spouse as SS income! Other kinds of income are not calculated as Social Security income.

SAMPLE STORY

Sent in by Kevin in Colorado who sent us the AARP links.    

“The first important step for improving Social Security is to stop the government from raiding the Social Security benefits of small groups of people like they have done with GPO/WEP. This scheme robbed a particular group of people of the Social Security that they rightly paid for and deserve and AARP has not done or said a thing about it. These are not rich people who have been able to save ample money to make up for this loss. These are (lower to mid) middle class public servants who never made a lot of money to start with and do not deserve to have their retirement funds pilfered.

If AARP & the government really think it’s okay to rob the retirement funds of pensioners, then they should do it across the board to all recipients of pension funds, many of whom get much larger pensions, matching retirement funds, golden parachutes, and higher lifetime earnings than those who were bilked of their retirement under the guise of GPO & WEP.”

“Public pensions are wrecking our State (City, County, fill in the blank)”  “Greedy public servants are ruining our economy!”  We hear this over and over.  All systems are lumped together.  We don’t need to debate that here, but what we do need to do is to make sure that people know that not all retirement systems are the same. 

Some pension systems require a higher rate of employee contributions than others, and MANY EMPLOYERS ONLY CONTRIBUTE TO THE PUBLIC PENSION AND DON’T PAY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS FOR THE WORKER!   This saves a lot of money for government agencies, and it makes the public pension twice as important for their employees who will either get no Social Security retirement benefits or will have them greatly reduced.

This is an excruciating problem for many older postal workers.  The U.S. Postal Service will be facing huge cutbacks and the administration is probably hoping for retirements to ease the blow of layoffs.  Many postal workers hired before 1986, however, belong to CSRS and are not eligible for any Social Security or will have their benefits reduced by the GPO/WEP.  They need to hang on as long as they can.

Here is a story that came in from an SSF member in Colorado, showing what can happen when public employees are caught by both the offsets and the push to cut all public pensions.  Please use the ideas in this Alert as you write letters to the editor, to your legislators and to your friends. And please send us a copy at: ssfairness@gmail.com.

I was completely blind-sided by the unfair Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP).

Since I had worked in another state & career prior to teaching in Colorado, I was unable to build up many years in the Public Employee Retirement Association. But I figured that the combination of Social Security & PERA would be enough. Then I found out, when I retired, that I would lose a huge chunk of both PERA and Social Security. (PERA due to the recent cost-cutting measures at the state level and Social Security as a result of GPO/WEP.)

Both of these hits to my retirement funds occurred after I had already retired when it was too late to do anything about it.

It is a shame that our legislature is able to fund “too big to fail” bankers and other millionaires, but can’t seem to find a way to support those of us who dedicated our lives to public service.

Many members of the public don’t understand this problem, and the media has often misrepresented it!

Just before the Senate went on recess in mid-December John Kerry (D-MA) introduced a companion bill to the House Social Security Fairness Bill (HR1332).

The new Senate bill specifies repeal of both the GPO and the WEP. It is number S 2010 and is co-sponsored by Susan Collins (R-ME). 

We are delighted!

The best way we can thank these two Senators is to get their colleagues to sign on as co-sponsors! The National Education Association has set up a quick and easy way to email both your Senators and your Congress Person. This is open to everyone and you do not need to sign up for NEA emails to use the service.  Click here and also pass this link on to your friends:

(http://capwiz.com/nea/issues/alert/?alertid=59458501

It is not likely that these bills will be passed this year, but they are a vehicle for explaining to legislators why these offsets are WRONG. When any changes are made to the Social Security retirement formulas, we want to make sure that lawmakers know that this is a problem that must be fixed!

From our recent sign ups, here is another story of outrageous injustice:

My mother (a public school teacher) was blindsided by this unfair legislation. She is constantly having to explain to people why she does not receive survivor benefits, when most of her peers (84 years old) do receive them. It feels so punitive to me. It’s as if they are saying, “You worked so we are now going to punish you for it. And, your husband died so now we are going to rip up your life even more. Ha!” The concept of double dipping was inaccurate, as if someone were stealing. They built their lives and family, contributed to society, and paid taxes, together.  California.

Thank you for staying with us as we fight for change!!!

Barack Obama was still a senator when he wrote the National Education Association saying that he would sign a bill to repeal these Social Security Offsets if he became president.  Has he forgotten us?  Does his current staff even know about the problem? This is our chance to make our point.  A petition to regulate puppy mills has more than 25,000 signatures.  Surely, we can do this well if people continue to forward the information.

Please try again, if you didn’t get on. Send the link to your family, friends and to anyone you know who is still working but will be affected when they retire. (http://wh.gov/4KL)  We need the voices of active employees and retired people in every district across the country.  Our petition has signatures from 48 states!  We are everywhere!!  (only the Dakotas are missing)  It’s  -  http://wh.gov/4KL     just do it now! Instructions on our website at http://www.ssfairness.com/current-action/

This campaign has brought us more than 120 new members and a great many hits on our newly-designed website.  Welcome new members! Our Facebook page is now on our Home Page (ssfairness.com), so you can see what others are saying even if you do not use Facebook.  We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

The WEP and the GPO are still WRONG!  We need to be looking for other ways of fixing this, as she suggests, but now is a good time for us to be spreading the word about the offsets. While everyone is talking about what public employees get or don’t get, now is the perfect time to mention the offsets at meetings, to your friends and families, to neighbors, in letters to the editor, and on call-in talk shows.  ”Our Case” is our statement of why the offsets are so wrong. Read it, use it to fortify your own story, print it up, and pass it out. People will become more outraged. “That is SO unfair,” they’ll say.

Read Our Case, print it out, and keep on building our numbers!