[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by allsport

Neither of those things are a good solution. I worked for the government for 40 years and was in the original retirement system, a benefit that I looked at when deciding to stay in government. We were not comparably paid to the private sector but retirement was something that kept people in government. You are incorrect to think that current employees have government pensions, sometime in the 80's the retirement system was changed and they now have 401K's SS and a minor government pension. SS was enacted to assist people who are poor and do not have a retirement option. If you pay in, you should be able to collect no matter what other pension you have including the government pension. When my husband died I was denied my widow's pension because I had a federal pension. That would not have happened had I not been on government retirement. That is unfair as he paid into the system for way more than 40 quarters. He has been dead for 6 years and I am wondering if I will be able to back and get his money.

But you are collecting the govt pension you did pay into rather than the SS you did not pay onto.

If you were collecting SS instead of your pension then you would have to choose between your SS or the survivor benefit, whichever was larger - you would not collect both. How is that any different than having your survivor benefit reduced to zero today because your current pension is so much larger?