The House of Representatives passed a bill to get rid of the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). Now, the Senate will vote on the provisions.
The new law, called the Social Security Fairness Act, aims to make sure that people who have worked in the private sector and paid into Social Security don’t have their payments cut if they have also worked for the government.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), a co-author of the bill, emphasised the need of its prompt passage. “There’s been some talk about attempting to make it part of the end-of-year negotiation. I believe that is a genuine attempt to kill it.”
Even though the bill passed with almost 300 votes in the House and might become law on its own, he is worried about the delay. “Anything else is really putting us on a slow path towards death, and I think it’s on purpose,” he said.
Rep. Graves, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), and Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) wrote a letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to persuade them to consider the legislation and help it pass.
“For the first time in history, you have the opportunity to get this bill passed. We encourage you, on behalf of the almost 2.5 million seniors affected by WEP and GPO in every state across the country, to introduce the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R.82) to the United States Senate for a vote.”
The Social Security Fairness act, a controversial bill
Despite significant bipartisan support, which is unsurprising given that Social Security is one of the few items that receives support from both sides of the political divide, many Republican members have expressed concerns about how it was approved through the House.
To pass it, lawmakers utilised a discharge petition, which permits them to bypass leadership and force legislation to be considered. This form of measure rarely passes since it is typically utilised by members of the minority party and requires members of the majority party to vote in favour of the legislation, which is uncommon with these types of laws.
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) expressed his displeasure but did not criticise the bill’s provisions. “In a well-run Congress, no legislator signs a discharge petition if you’re in the majority.” This is a rule that is never broken. And the fact that 47 of my colleagues signed a discharge petition demonstrates that we have a complete lack of discipline.
Other experts, including Andrew Biggs, a senior scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, were similarly sceptical about the timing and efficacy of the law. “[The WEP and the GPO] were created at a period when the government had access to all of the data available today, so they had to rely on primitive regulations to accomplish their goals.
So, on average, it is roughly accurate, which means that people are treated more or less equally. However, it is not always fair. According to the rule of averages, if some people are treated unfairly, others may receive a better deal than they deserve. The approach is to adjust the formula rather than completely delete the regulations.
As a refresher, the WEP is a method used to increase Social Security worker payments for people who receive “non-covered pensions” but qualify for Social Security benefits based on their other Social Security-covered earnings.
A non-covered pension is one provided by an employer who does not deduct Social Security taxes from your income, such as state and local governments or non-U.S. companies. The GPO also reduces payouts for spouses with government pensions.