Congress just passed a law that will give me (and millions of people like me) extra Social Security benefits that we simply do not deserve and haven’t earned.
To understand what is happening, here is a quick history lesson: The original Social Security Act included unintentional and overly generous benefits for government employees. These were benefits that no other Americans could get. About 50 years ago, a more responsible Congress recognized this and created two laws to correct this mistake. The Windfall Elimination Provision (WPO) said that Social Security retirement benefits for government employees should be figured in the same way as those for all other senior citizens. The Government Pension Offset (GPO) law said that government pensions should offset any Social Security spousal benefits potentially due, just as Social Security retirement benefits have always offset those same spousal benefits.
But now, bowing to relentless pressure from government employee unions and advocacy groups, a more naive and vote-seeking Congress has repealed the WEP and GPO. So once again, government retirees like me will get overly generous Social Security benefits that no other senior citizens in the country are eligible for. And by so doing, they have put a $200 billion hole in an already rapidly deflating Social Security budget balloon.
To explain why repealing the WEP and GPO is a wrongheaded boondoggle, I will use myself as an example. But first, you need to know a basic tenet of Social Security: Benefits have always been skewed to give lower-paid workers a better deal than their more highly paid counterparts. Very low-paid workers could get a Social Security benefit representing up to 90 percent of their preretirement earnings. This percentage is known as a “replacement rate.” People with average incomes (the middle class) generally get a 40 percent replacement rate.
So now, back to me. I spent the bulk of my career working for the federal government. While working as a fed, I paid into the Civil Service Retirement System, not Social Security. (Things have changed since I was hired in the early 1970s; all federal employees hired after 1984 pay into Social Security.) But I also did pay into Social Security at a few jobs I had in high school and college and at other jobs I’ve had since I retired from federal government work. I have about 15 years of earnings that were covered by Social Security.
So, when the Social Security computers looked at my record when I applied for Social Security benefits, they assumed that I must be poor. After all, I had all of those years with no earnings. That record didn’t show that I actually was working all that time for the government and earning a civil service retirement pension.
And because the Social Security system thought I was poor, it was programmed to give me that 90 percent poor person’s benefit rate. In other words, I would have been getting an undeserved windfall from Social Security. And that’s where the “Windfall Elimination Act” came in. It correctly recognized that I wasn’t poor, and it gave me the same 40 percent rate that all other average-income Americans get.
And it did the same for all other workers who spent the bulk of their careers in jobs not covered by Social Security. These are primarily teachers, police officers, and firefighters in certain states. (Why those groups don’t pay into Social Security is a subject for another column.)
For the past half-century, union officials representing these groups have been pressuring Congress to eliminate the WEP because they wrongly think that the law cheats their members out of their due Social Security benefits. And in each of those years, a bill to eliminate the WEP has failed to get approved. But in this wacky political year, things were different. So even though almost all of you reading this column are getting the proper 40 percent Social Security benefit rate, Congress has now decided to eliminate the WEP to give me (and all those other government employees like me) the 90 percent rate—boosting our Social Security checks by a couple hundred extra bucks per month. What a sham, and what a shame!
But it gets even worse. As I said, the other law that the misnamed “Fairness Act” eliminated is called the Government Pension Offset.
To explain what is happening here, I will again use myself as an example. Before the GPO law came into effect, I would have been able to get my government pension retirement check, and I would have been due a “dependent” husband’s benefit on my wife’s Social Security record. Why? Because of those Social Security computers that think I’m a poor old guy with just a small Social Security check. So, I was deemed financially dependent on my wife and granted spousal benefits on her Social Security record. However the GPO law recognized that I worked for the government and got a civil service pension check. And just like a Social Security retirement check offsets any spousal benefits that might be due, my civil service pension check would also offset those potential dependent benefits.
But by eliminating the GPO, Congress is giving me (and all of those millions of other government pensioners) unintended benefits from our spouses. Think about that. Almost all of you reading this column cannot collect your Social Security retirement check and get extra benefits from your spouse’s account. But now, other government pensioners and I will do just that.
And so if you believe that repealing the WEP and GPO makes sense, write your member of Congress and tell him or her that you think the “Social Security Fairness Act” was a great idea. But if you don’t think it’s fair, then write your member of Congress and say: “Shame on you! I thought you were supposed to be saving Social Security, not squandering its funds on greedy government retirees!”
Tom Margenau worked for 32 years in a variety of positions for the Social Security Administration before retiring in 2005. He has served as the director of SSA’s public information office, the chief editor of more than 100 SSA publications, a deputy press officer and spokesman, and a speechwriter for the commissioner of Social Security. For 12 years, he also wrote Social Security columns for local newspapers, and recently published the book “Social Security: Simple and Smart.”
Reprinted with Permission from The Epoch Times – By Tom Margenau
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.