The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) are two provisions in the United States Social Security system that can impact individuals who receive pensions from jobs not covered by Social Security, such as certain government jobs or foreign work. These provisions can reduce or eliminate Social Security benefits for individuals who also receive pensions from such jobs. For almost 40 years, WEP and GPO have reduced millions of dollars in hard-earned Social Security benefits of education retirees.
Why is this important to MRTA?
Both WEP and GPO negatively impact the over 68,000 PSRS retirees in the state of Missouri. The WEP significantly reduces an educational retiree's Social Security benefit simply because the retiree is also eligible to collect a public pension- even if the spouse is entitled to a survivor benefit based on their spouse's work in a Social Security covered job. These substantial cuts to Social Security benefits are made despite the fact that the retirees have paid the same Social Security taxes over their careers for those survivorship benefits. Nearly 1.9 million people across all 50 states are negatively impacted by reductions in their Social Security benefits as a result of WEP and GPO.
There are nearly 700,000 surviving spouses residing in all 50 states who are impacted by GPO and these survivors are counting on strong survivor benefits should they predecease their spouse. The survivor benefit serves as the only form of affordable income protection and financial stability for spouses. More than 84% of surviving spouses that are impacted by GPO are female. 71% of people affected by the GPO lose ALL of their Social Security spousal or survivor benefits. Retired public employees with a $3,000-a-month pension lose $24,000 in Social Security benefits every year. This penalty usually eliminates ALL the Social Security retirement benefits a public worker’s spouse has paid in for them.
What is MRTA Doing?
Members of MRTA staff traveled last year and will be traveling again October 2nd-5th to Washington D.C. to lobby for the repeal of WEP/GPO. In addition, MRTA has been actively working in Washington, D.C. for over 20 years to work on repealing WEP and GPO. We have sent three “call to action” emails and text messages in the past year and plan to send another call to action to the over 30,000 MRTA members in Missouri to make an impact. We got close to having this issue brought to the House floor for discussion last October. We will continue to advocate and fight for the repeal.
This is the value of membership with MRTA and why it is so vitally important for all retired teachers to join MRTA. There is strength in numbers and there is so much value in having retirees of PSRS join MRTA. We need to get the word out so that we can make a positive impact on this issue.
Please feel free to reach out to MRTA if you have any questions.
THANK YOU! This is VERY important. Especially for those of us who have worked outside of education for several years, as well as those who paid IN to Soc. Sec. during part of our Educational Career (due to legislative changes).
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