The total Home handed by a 327-75 vote late Tuesday H.R. 82, the Social Safety Equity Act of 2023, which might repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Authorities Pension Offset (GPO).
Additionally up for a vote Tuesday was H.R. 5342, the Equal Remedy of Public Servants Act of 2023, which Social Safety advocates say would reduce advantages for 14 million future retirees, together with widows. The invoice did not move the complete Home by a 175-225 vote.
The Equal Remedy of Public Servants Act, which creates an alternate profit method for affected retirees, “is being offered in its place” to repeal, the Nationwide Committee to Protect Social Safety and Medicare instructed Home lawmakers Tuesday.
People who obtain a pension based mostly on work for federal, state or native authorities the place Social Safety taxes weren’t withheld could discover their Social Safety advantages lowered by means of these provisions.
In 1977 and 1983, Congress enacted laws lowering Social Safety advantages to such people by means of GPO and WEP. The GPO applies to these eligible for Social Safety partner’s or widow’s or widower’s advantages. The WEP applies to these eligible for their very own Social Safety profit.
“In enacting the WEP and GPO, Congress created a totally totally different set of inequities, slashing Social Safety advantages for some despite the fact that their payroll contributions is likely to be precisely the identical as their fellow People whose work historical past was completely inside the Social Safety system,” NCPSSM President Max Richtman has argued.
Advocates argue that the WEP and GPO, initially supposed to make Social Safety advantages fairer, really penalize public sector workers like academics, firefighters, law enforcement officials and federal staff.
The H.R. 5342 different invoice, “solely mitigates among the results of WEP on present retirees, and would result in profit cuts for some 14 million future retirees,” an NCPSSM spokesperson mentioned. “It does nothing to vary GPO.”
Richtman urged lawmakers Tuesday “to oppose H.R. 5342 and help H.R. 82, the Social Safety Equity Act of 2023. Enactment of H.R. 82 will restore the earned Social Safety advantages to hundreds of thousands of public servants — together with the academics, police and firefighters who put their lives on the road for our households every single day.”
Funds Issues
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Accountable Federal Funds, mentioned in a notice Tuesday that the Social Safety Equity Act is unpaid-for and “would add $196 billion to deficits over the subsequent decade.”
The invoice additionally hastens “Social Safety’s insolvency by roughly six months whereas including to the dimensions of the profit cuts that can robotically happen beneath present regulation,” MacGuineas mentioned.
“How is rushing up the date of Social Safety’s retirement fund’s insolvency, rising the dimensions of the automated profit cuts that can hit seniors, and including $200 billion to the deficit an excellent plan for seniors or for the nation?” MacGuineas mentioned. “But that’s precisely what the Social Safety Equity Act would do.”
The invoice, MacGuineas continued, needs to be referred to as “the Social Safety UnEquity Act; it creates a Windfall Growth Provision for a small variety of beneficiaries who would get to double-dip their retirement advantages.”
‘Severely Poor’
The Equal Remedy of Public Servants Act is “severely poor in two main methods,” Max Richtman, president and CEO of the Social Safety group, instructed lawmakers Tuesday in a letter.
“First, it leaves intact the present regulation Social Safety Authorities Pension Offset (GPO) provision, thus leaving a whole lot of hundreds of beneficiaries, about one-half of whom are widows and widowers, shedding as much as everything of their Social Safety profit,” Richtman mentioned.
Second, H.R. 5342 “would develop reasonably than scale back the attain of the present regulation Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), slicing the advantages of hundreds of thousands of People who aren’t presently affected by the (WEP),” Richtman wrote.
“There’s clearly an issue with the way in which each the WEP and the GPO have an effect on Social Safety advantages,” mentioned Maria Freese, senior legislative consultant on the Nationwide Committee to Protect Social Safety and Medicare, in an e-mail.
The Committee’s desire, Freese continued, “has at all times been to appropriate the issue as a part of complete SS [Social Security] reform,” in laws similar to Rep. John Larson’s Social Safety 2100 Act.
“Nonetheless we strongly oppose HR 5342, which the Republican management has positioned on the suspension calendar as a substitute for HR. 82,” Freese mentioned.
“It’s crucial that Congress not be misled by the ‘maintain innocent’ provision that permits American staff to obtain advantages beneath both the present method or the brand new one — whichever is larger — for the subsequent 4 many years,” Ritchman mentioned in his letter.
“Whereas that is true, different provisions within the invoice would lead to profit cuts for hundreds of thousands of hard-working People who have been by no means topic to the WEP within the first place,” he added.
The Social Safety Administration’s chief actuary has projected that H.R. 5342 would reduce advantages for 14 million future retirees, whereas elevating advantages for just one million, Richtman mentioned.
