My social security has been reduced by 50% because I spent the last 21 years of my career in state government and have a state pension. The first 23 years was in social security jobs. This will make the budget easier to manage.

My first 25 working years I paid into social security, my last 20 working years will be in my current city/municipal job that has an exempt pension. I was looking at a 50% reduction to my SS once I started drawing it but this is great news!

Last edited Sat Dec 21, 2024, 02:40 AM - Edit history (1)

The WEP in particular was outright theft of earned benefits from those of us who worked in state government agencies that didn't pay into SS, no matter how small the state pension amount. I got $120 deducted off my SS benefit when I took SS early at age 62 in 2017. This was about a third of my dinky Nevada pension of $341. The "reasoning" behind such a capricious penalty was the idea that public employees have "big pensions." Never mind anybody with a "big pension" would never earn enough quarters to even qualify for SS in the first place. It was those of us in the middle, who worked in midlife in non-SS covered employment but didn't work 30 years in "substantial earnings" employment not to be docked with this penalty. And having to pay Medicare Part B made my total loss per month $300 bucks. However, it will be nice to get that $120 per month back.

Last edited Sat Dec 21, 2024, 10:59 AM - Edit history (1)

This effects alot of teacher retirees here in Texas.

Also a huge thank you for unanimously passing the cancer research bill for children that is now on its way to Bidens desk.

Bravo.

Also a huge thank you to our Congress, Republicans and Democrats that voted to keep our government up and working for all the people.

This despite 'Resdent elect Elon Musk who on his own (okay, a little help from his mini me trump) tried to sink it.

before the radical right ruined the GOP and had a "no compromise" mentality.

Chuck Schumer deserves a lot of credit for getting this legislation to the Senate floor. If this had been McConnell, the legislation would have died in its tracks. The late Orrin Hatch killed this proposal over and over, as did the House Ways and Means Committee.

This repeal will help many people.

Both the Senate and Congress came through with flying colors. They did and I am going to give them a lot of credit for what they made possible today.

I may be heartbroken in the near future, however I will celebrate this day.

I'm not celebrating yet

Immediately? I am in a similar situation.

Any idea of when the payments will be made? I also e-mailed my Rep (Zoe Lofgren) so I should hear from her soon.

No one else can opt out. Was it considered inferior and good enough for everyone else (like the rest of us) except them?

I am currently exempt from SS at my current local government job and we contribute 5% to our municipal pension and get 2.25% credit towards that pension for each year of service. So someone that works for the city for 30 years retires on 67.5% of their highest 5 years average salary. Work 20 years get 45%, etc. Our city owns and operates all of the utilities, even multiple power plants, so it’s always been well funded. We also get a 5% 401k match, so it’s typical for retirees to have hundreds of thousands in that at retirement to supplement retirement.

I contributed to SS for over 20 years and was looking at it being reduced 50% once I drew it because I’m eligible for an exempt pension so this is great news, will be around an extra $1000-$1200 a month from SS.

I’ve always been a retirement hound though. Did 20 years in the military (11 active and 9 reserve) so get that pension, get my VA disability compensation, I was a federal employee for awhile and bought my military time into it so will get a modest FERS pension at age 62. Then I’ll probably do 20 years at this city job so will get that pension and now my full social security with no penalty.

Doesn't matter what pension or other retirement avenues are available in the private sector, everyone is forced to contribute to SS (whether they like it or not), even the self employed. Not only that, if they fail to do so they get fined by the IRS.

Yet, public employees are permitted to opt out of the system that is required for everyone else because it isn't good enough for them.

We don’t have a choice. Some states and municipalities chose not to participate in social security long ago, I believe they cut off the creation of any new exempt pension plans in the early 1980s.

But yes it is better, it’s a great recruitment and retention tool.

We didn't pay into social security. But I was someone with 40 credits into social security for previous jobs so I never thought I'd get anything. Been collecting social security for one year with a 60% reduction

It was never fair that people vested in social security had their benefits reduced because they also were part of another retirement system.

If Social Secuity is good enough for everyone else, why not government employees?

"We have created a fantastic retirement insurance program called Social Security. It's required for everyone to contribute to it from their paycheck, but it so good, you will love it. Oh, just one thing; it only applies to all of you in the private sector; we have something better for us who work for the government"

People that paid into both social security and some exempt retirement plans over their careers were getting penalized for it due to a Reagan era law, this fixes that.

Federal employees (since 1981) and most state employees pay into both social security and their pension plans and get the full benefits from each. This is overturning a Reagan era law that penalized those in legacy pension plans that were also vested in social security, it’s not many these days, just a few million people.

The only plausible reason is that they didn't think Social Security was good enough.

Rules for thee and not for me

The railroad retirement plans were all exempted and still are, many teacher and university retirement plans, municipal and utility retirement plans, etc. Those unions back in the day held enough influence to get exemptions and keep employees exclusively under their own retirement systems. Federal government employees were exempt from social security until the early 1980s when the current FERS retirement system brought new hires into social security in addition to a federal pension.

Everyone in the private sector (union or not) is required to participate in Social Security with zero exceptions, but government employees are a special class and are thus exempted from a system that they view as inferior and inadequate. Even though they require the rest of us to contribute to it whether we like it or not.

Just like Congress isn't actually required to follow their own laws that they demand everyone else adhere to. Rules for thee but not for me.

Any other retirement plans they were in should be immaterial, which this law change corrects. Reducing social security benefits for those affected employees was theft for the last 40 years.

teachers in CA are not part of SS and can not contribute whether they want to or not. 10% of our income is deducted for our pension plan and deductions for SS as well would be too much. But here's the important part: we can't collect SS AT ALL. So, in my case, I worked many low paying jobs in my teens and early twenties but after that I was a full time teacher for decades. So I will never collect SS because I didn't earn 40 quarters. End of story. However, my hubby worked in the private sector for decades and earned more than 40 quarters by paying into SS. He then went into teaching later in life. Because he was older, he didn't have many years in at the time of retirement. So his teaching pension is lower than mine. However, the benefits he had paid into and earned earlier were reduced by more than 50% because he had another pension. The point is he earned both separately and is being unfairly penalized. This situation does not apply to the majority of teachers.

So I never worked a job for any substantial time that was anything but a Social Security contributed job.

I remember back in the 80s when they eliminated pensions and put everyone on a 401k with company matches. Well the 'matching' faded away in just a few years. I was self employed for a time and then got to pay twice for my SS taxes, both employee and employer contributions. 401K accounts are great if you know how to invest, but every time a republican took over there was a major crash and the account bounced around like superball under a table.

But, my ONLY retirement income is Social Security plus my own personal savings in my 401k/IRA accounts. So I worked half a century too, just not smart enough to work a government job, so I get less? The answer is yes.

Fortunately I structured my life to be able to live on less than 2k per month total even with over 20% of that going to health insurance and copays.

I am not saying that anyone who payed into the SS system should not get benefits. It is just that there were some valid reasons for the partial benefits if you were only in the system for part of your working career.

Actually I just hope that the DOGEbags leave me with any retirement income.

I wasn't even paying much attention to politics at that time. It really strikes me how what enraged the masses back then, now goes the other direction, and the masses direct their ire at other people.

I guess it keeps the politicians in business, and saves them from having to spend time on people who are too busy struggling with their daily lives to use their voices in politics effectively.

To be clear, I don't know enough to know in what ways the original "anti double dipping" policy was poorly written and unfair. It may be that it needed adjustment. I'm just musing that the folks affected by this generally aren't those worst-off in our society - but they were able to get the megaphone and politician's attention.

The REAL definition of "double dipping" is if you retired from a governmental job collecting a pension then would be hired back to that same or similar job while still collecting the pension. States typically have strict rules on this. This is NOT the case here. By that "logic," NO public employee in any state or federal employee should have both a pension and Social Security. By that "logic," NO private employee should collect both a pension and Social Security.

The Reagan administration decided to penalize people who were working in jobs that didn't pay into Social Security but actually earned a benefit in covered employment. That was the "windfall elimination provision." It was always bullshit. The Reagan administration thought this was a good wedge issue to pit people without pensions against those who did.

60 MInutes back in the early 1980s did a hatchet job on this issue, and that helped put this rotten provision into law.

Still, I think "it must be nice" to get both pension and SS. And the miscreants who will soon be in charge, seem likely to gut as much as they can gut from the SS that those on the lowest rungs get.

It's not that I begrudge people who've worked hard getting a decent retirement from that. It's that I wish the attention were going to those who needed it most; and I fear instead that those worse off will indeed get the attention, and that it will be to make them even MORE worse off. But hey, it's what a majority of voters in the swing states (what's that about 8 states?) voted for, so hooray for Democracy. Sigh. (You would be right in thinking I did not take my happy pills today)

Many states affected by the offsets were in red states like Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. Many supporters of the legislation were Republicans who LISTENED to their constituents.

Not Ted Cruz or Thune or McConnell in the Senate, but many of them did.

Nobody is going to "gut" Social Security and think they would ever get away with it.

You could have always taken a job in the public sector. That was your choice. I PAID into SS for 41 years and counting, yet because I had a grand total of 5.04 years in service credit in Nevada public employment getting a piddling $341 and did not get 30 years of "substantial earnings," I got SCREWED out of $120 a month out of my SS that I earned. The big stink is if a person worked 30 years in "substantial earnings," which always went up, then the WEP would not apply. 30 years is completely arbitrary and based on the outdated notion people worked at one employer their entire working career before retiring. For many of us, that was not true and continues not to be true. I had many low years. I currently work a nine-month (full time) classified position in school district employment in Oregon, but my earnings fell just short of reaching the "substantial earnings" threshold. I am almost 70 years old and can't work forever. WEP was completely unfair to people like me who were trying to make up for the low earning years.

Glad it is being made right now.

Nobody is getting SS benefits they didn't pay for. What the WEP does is reduce your EARNED SS benefits (in my case by 40%), because you earned a different government pension as well. It was sold as a way to address the unsightly possibilty that someone might retire rich on government pension + SS, but it affects ANYONE who EARNED both kinds of pensions, regardless of how little they get. My current SS benefit is $647 / month, Although I EARNED a benefit 40% higher.

If they have 30, 35, or 40 years in, they are not going to be able to get the 40 quarters to become eligible for SS benefits.

The WEP directly impacted people like me who went into non-covered employment in midlife, but didn't get "outrageous" pensions because they had less service credit. I was only in non-covered employment a total of 5.04 years, with about 1 1/2 years of it also working for a private school fulltime paying into SS. I was still cheated out of about $120 a month SS.

A lot of people who earned both an uncovered pension AND Social Security benefits were cheated out of those full SS benefits they EARNED. It IS a matter of fairness.

And yes it's only fair.

But reading the articles about it, the GOPers are already making stmts OH we can't afford this! And how this will stress the already underfunded SS staff etc.

Only 75 Republicans in the House voted against repeal. The rest LISTENED to their constituents. This took many years of lobbying to get to this point. Usually one person obstructed, whether it was Orrin Hatch or somebody on the House Ways and Means Committee.

The "Social Security will be insolvent" mantra has always been a right-wing lie from the early 1980s, peddled by Koch-financed "libertarian" organizations like the Cato Institute. It was always about ideology with these crackpots. They wanted to create resentment and generational warfare while at the same time the REAL motive was the billionaires and businesses not wanting to pay their share of FICA taxes. Furthermore, no federal program can "go broke" since the federal government prints the money. Any bookkeeping "shortfall" can easily be remedied by paying it out of the general fund. This is why there has never been any big push to "fix" Social Security in recent decades. There is no need to.

I would be surprised.

It won't become a zombie.

It’s a nonpartisan win win, Baby!

Championed it from the get-go.