The House of Representatives has approved a new bill that will raise Social Security benefits for public service workers who were previously limited in their benefit amounts.
The law in dispute is House Resolution 82, the Social Security Fairness Act, which was passed 327-76, with 191 Democrats and 136 Republicans voting in favor. The bill’s triumph was expected, given that it had received widespread bipartisan support, and even the Speaker of the House supported its passage.
The Social Security Fairness Act
The bill, filed and sponsored by Reps. Garret Graves (R-Louisiana) and Abigail Spanberger (D-Virginia), would repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO) for federal employees.
The WEP reduces Social Security payments for people who also earn a public pension from a job that is not covered by Social Security, while the GPO reduces spousal Social Security benefits by two-thirds of a worker’s government pension.
Because both of these provisions were in effect at the same time, 2.8 million public service workers, including teachers, police officers, and others in government, would have been ineligible for larger Social Security payments upon retirement than they are entitled to, leaving them struggling financially despite having earned the necessary credits and done the jobs to support their claim. They can now claim this money because the provisions have been repealed.
Graves and Spanberger wrote in a joint statement about the bill’s significance, “By passing the Social Security Fairness Act, a bipartisan majority of the United States House of Representatives showed up for the millions of Americans — police officers, teachers, firefighters, and other local and state public servants — who worked a second job to make ends meet or began a second career to support their families after retiring from public service.
A bipartisan majority of the United States House of Representatives voted to ensure a safe retirement for the hundreds of thousands of spouses, widows, and widowers who are denied their spouses’ Social Security benefits merely because they chose service careers.”
Despite the measure’s popularity, not everyone supported the repeal of the WEP and GPO. Conservative-leaning group The Club for Growth pushed lawmakers to vote against it, citing a rise in the government deficit.
The organization said in its statement: “These two provisions are meant to preserve the integrity of the Social Security system that so many seniors depend on by ensuring that individuals and their spouses who worked in jobs that did not contribute to the Old Age and Survivor’s Insurance Trust Fund and receive pensions from those jobs do not threaten the solvency of Social Security.”
The trick here is that in order to get Social Security benefits, those who are eligible must work in a job that allows them to contribute to the system in addition to their pension.
When the pension system was more robust, these restrictions eliminated double dipping; but, now that pensions are smaller and the cost of living is higher, forcing many people to work two jobs to support themselves, enabling them to collect the benefits to which they are entitled is only reasonable.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that if passed, the bill will add $195.6 billion to the deficit over the next ten years, which is one of conservative organizations’ main concerns; however, the offset in public benefits that will not be paid out when these individuals receive a living wage pension could easily offset the cost. The bill must now be passed by the Senate and signed into law.
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