Thank you ratbert2k.
We agree to disagree.
Who is your representative so that I can write them in opposition to your flawed arguments?
Thank you ratbert2k.
I respect your right to disagree that we agree to disagree.
Perhaps your Rep will be persuaded by the many other Reps who understand the unfairness and already support the law change.
No. She cannot collect on the social security that she DID pay into, or the survivor benefit that her husband earned. The offset is significantly higher.
One pays into Social Security via FICA taxes. One receives Social Security insurance benefits if one meets specific qualifications.
For retirement benefits, you must have paid FICA taxes for 40 quarters (approximately 20 years). You must be at least 62 years old. Along with earning a retirement benefits if you meet the qualifications, you also earn spousal benefits for your spouse, survivor benefits for spouse and minor children, and disability benefits if you become disabled before attaining age 62. For disability benefits, you may need fewer quarters depending on how young you are when you become disabled.
A spouse or widow/widower does not get the benefit in addition to their own earned benefit, but there is an even tradeoff that amounts to the higher amount (deceasedâs amt - widowâs retirement amt = widowâs survivor benefit, which added to her or his retirement amount is the same as the deceasedâs higher amount). A similar calculation is used with spousal benefits, except that it based upon half of the workers earned retirement benefits.
Thank you LarryFine for bringing this up. Many public service employees are not even aware of this until they retire. And then they find out that the social security pension they depended on getting will be cut by up to 45%. I try to discourage young people from going into public service. It is unfair and WEP/GPO needs to be repealed. All public employees are asking for is what they have already paid into social security, no more, no less.
I donât know why Clark does not do a segment on WEP/GPO to educate people who are thinking about going into public service. Maybe he can help put pressure on Congress to pass the Social Security Fairness Act HR 82.
1 Like
My wife started SocSec last year, and was NOT badly hit by GPO / WEP despite being an Adjunct College Faculty Member, after having a career at a place which collected SocSec tax. Still, we had some tense weeks waiting to see her retirement benefit letter. Thanks for keeping this thread alive, GPO and WEP are terrible taxes which need to die.
How long did she work at the job where she paid into Social Security? They require that you work 35 years before the effects of WEP or GPO are practically erased. Unfortunately Iâd be in my 80âs if I did thatâŚ
Larry:
I would be willing to bet that a majority of your earnings were in the teaching profession. You paid very little into the system. Instead contributing into a teachers retirement fund. Thats where you old age retirement comes from. Because you worked a few odd jobs an had SS withheld from your check does not entitile you to get a double pay out. (Both teachers retirement and social security). Unless you earned more and contributed for 30 years than your teachers salary. The name of the bill is a misnomer because fairness already exists in your case. Most states that have teachers retirements have unions and it is a negotiated benefit. Southern states have no unions and those terachers get social security pay outs.
Jim
GPO / WEP are repealed by Congress today early in the AM hours! Pres. Biden expected to sign the bill!
Now my wife just has to figure out how to get SSA to review her benefits and possibly bump up her payments.
SSA is in such good financial shape to be able to do this. Likely the increases will not makeup for the inflation it will cause.
We should not trade off justice versus the ability to pay settlements.
To say that people getting compensated for harms done to them will spark inflation is simply wrong and a scare tactic. Whether it (inflation) happens or not, itâs irrelevant to justice. Anyway, the Federal Reserve of the US holding interest rates near 0% for years and years and the resulting wealth effect of the âeverything bubbleâ, as well as COVID stimmy and stimmy fraud and COVID-era student loan and rent and mortgage forbearance have a lot more to do with todayâs inflation than anything else.
Also this is a four decade story brought to a close, many of the Social Security recipients who have been harmed over the years are deceased already, they wonât be getting compensated. Theyâve been stolen from already.
Refer to post 37
https://community.clark.com/t/repeal-the-social-security-windfall-elimination-provision-wep-support-the-social-security-fairness-act/4065/37
This thread is over a year old and there is no reason to rehash all the arguments for or against the WEP.
BTW⌠youâre welcome.
It passed and is on the way the to Joe Bidenâs desk!
I just communicated with a friend who is a lifelong Texas teacher. Sheâs divorced, unmarried (she loves her ex-husband, but he has dementia and had to be put into care, and she had to separate their finances with a strategic divorce so she would not be dragged into lifelong poverty by Medicare requirements⌠another heartbreaking story).
Anyway, before the GPO WEP repeal, SSA told her sheâd get $0 of her husbandâs benefits. They used to tell her, âno you canât, youâre double-dippingâ. This was always so outrageous! Why?
- a non-working spouse could obviously get benefits from her husbandâs SSA record
- a lifelong Texas teacher would get $0 because sheâs âdouble-dippingâ? She was penalized for working as a teacher! She would have gotten more if sheâd said, ânope, not going to teach, Iâm just going to hang out here at home for decades then claim on my husbandâs recordâ
Now, after GPO WEP repeal, she will get full benefits. Just like the spouse who never worked.
So the net effect is that Social Security will run out of money sooner ?
2 Likes
There are more things Congress needs to address. The income that pays into the social security trust fund needs to be significantly increased. That has not occurred to the extent that COLA payout increases have.
The original purpose of WEP and GPO was related to HIGH EARNERS. And having a 1:1 offset (such as between oneâs own and spousal or survivorâs benefits) makes sense. What doesnât make sense is low/middle income earners plus a two thirds offset.