Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill14564
1. But those affected by WEP are not collecting benefits from two separate providers, both the govt pension and the SS payments are from the govt. In fact, the govt pension was a program used instead of SS which is why the employee didn’t pay into SS under that program. The new law says to forget that, disregard that the pension was to replace SS, and write checks from the Fed Treasury for both programs.
2. Right, you don’t expect to collect twice from the same retirement source.
3. Two individuals, two qualifying careers, two checks. But that isn’t what I described and that isn’t what WEP or GPO applied to.
4. WEP and GPO saw that differently. They saw a single individual qualifying for govt benefits two ways but from the same govt and the same treasury. Both were intended to provide full retirement benefits to a single employee so it made no sense to pay double retirement benefits to that single employee.
5. Obviously. Otherwise, neither WEP nor GPO would apply.
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Bill, I might be wrong, but it sounds like you are assuming that a double-dipper earned both a Federal pension and Federal social security benefits. MOST of those impacted by this were teachers at the local level, and city police and fireman MOST of whom receive pensions from their county or state, not the Federal government.
The Federal government is not paying people twice in most cases. They are paying people for benefits (40 credits) earned in private employment, and local/state pensions they paid into are paying their pensions.
Social Security was supposed to be part of a proverbial three-legged stool for retirement: Employer pension, social security, and savings. Sadly, many only have the one leg of that stool to rely upon. The newer approach to 401(k)/IRA/SEP/Keough etc, became popular since so many employer pensions were raided and depleted (auto manufactures and airlines are classic examples). Now many only pay into 401(k) as their savings, so they foolishly combine those two stool legs.
Anyhow, this Social Security Fairness Act is not about giving people both pensions and social security if they did not pay into both. They "Fairness" comes from getting the full benefit for your years of paying into social security and not having your benefit reduced 70% or down to zero simply because you worked for the City of New York instead of Microsoft. It's like reducing your social security 70% because Microsoft granted you stock options throughout your career there - why should you get both stock options AND social security, right?