AFSCME President Lee Saunders on Wednesday applauded the House of Representatives for voting to repeal the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), laws that unfairly cut public service workers’ and their spouses’ Social Security benefits.
“AFSCME applauds the House of Representatives for voting to repeal GPO-WEP, which unfairly robs some public service workers and their families of their Social Security benefits simply because they have a pension,” Saunders said in a statement. “Our nation’s public service workers dedicate their lives to improving our communities; they deserve and have earned their full retirement benefits.”
He also urged the Senate to follow suit.
The GPO and WEP are outdated, unjust provisions that reduce or eliminate Social Security benefits for public employees simply because they also receive a public pension. These provisions punish people who have dedicated their lives to public service.
The House voted 327-75 on Tuesday to repeal the GPO and WEP through the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82), a bill strongly supported by AFSCME members and retirees and championed by Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy. Pro-worker lawmakers have introduced similar bills for decades, but they have never advanced. H.R. 82 is the first bill to even receive a vote in the House.
AFSCME members — especially retirees — made more than 1,000 calls in just 24 hours to lobby for H.R. 82. The AFL-CIO also put out a call to all union members to contact their House members to urge them to vote for the bill. Our union has long been involved in this fight because GPO and WEP deprive more than 2.8 million public employee retirees of Social Security benefits they have earned. Most recently, an AFSCME retiree testified at a GPO-WEP hearing held by Brown in Ohio and other AFSCME members showed up in force.
“The GPO and WEP cuts truly harm public pensioners and their spouses who paid thousands of dollars into Social Security over decades,” AFSCME wrote in a statement for a hearing on the Senate’s version of the bill. “Simply because they contributed to and are also receiving a public pension, the [Social Security Administration] denies them the full Social Security benefits they would otherwise be entitled to because of the current unfair GPO and WEP statutory provisions.”
The bill heads to the Senate next. Contact your senators to urge them to repeal the unfair GPO and WEP provisions before they adjourn for the year. Take action now!