The Social Security Administration’s Windfall Elimination Provision

I get your point except that SS is not a pension plan. All kinds of things reduce the SS retirement benefit, including taxes and other income you receive. I think the double taxation is worse than the windfall provision.

There is yet another provision called SSIP. It stands for Social Security Insolvency Plan and the way it works is as follows: When a person aged 30 today retires in 35 years, he/she will go to the social security office and find a sign reading: Sorry, We’re Closed Due to Insolvency.

At which point you’ll realize you won’t be getting a dime from social security.

Mr. SS - That is not going to happen unless SS becomes means tested. If so, and you have money saved, SS probably won’t give you any of its money.

I think the point is that you’re not paying into social security while you are employed by a local government and paying into your pension, so why should you be entitled to receive a social security payment as well? I work for a local government and am exempt from SS, and if I were to stay long enough to collect a pension I certainly wouldn’t feel entitled to a full SS payment on top of that.

It’s good that you got this out there. Folks need to be careful not to expect this. And be careful because a state pension is exposed to state political and financial risks. (Rumors abound that the states might freeze COLA, for instance.)

The good news is that most state and local jobs include a pension (which is supposed to be more generous than SS) and also allow for a 403b. (The bad news is that teachers’ 403b plans are riddled with annuities that were sold to the state agencies and unions!)

We also have to remember that the point of social security is to provide a safety net so we don’t have another _Cannery Row_. But it really isn’t a socialist program. If you already have a pension and haven’t paid into the system for a long time, you can’t expect to get a lot of benefits.

As way of comparison of the risks: I once worked for a fortune 500 company that 1) converted a defined benefit plan into a cash account plan, 2) nuked the retiree heath insurance program, 3) eventually placed rules on the cash account plan that made me ineligible because I left a month before full vesting. And I got a good deal compared to the retirees. SS isn’t that draconian, there would be an uproar.

I do sympathize with those who weren’t in the know. As someone who worked for the state for a few years, I wish state and local governments weren’t exempt from SS, which would clear up this mess.

GovEmployee makes a good point that they are not actually paying into social security so why would you receive the full benefits. It does suck when somebody retires planning on a certain amount of money and gets a cut in the amount they will receive.

Here in California, a lady retired after 20 years with the state, and now receives an 85% pension pay, not bad at all. She’s living the life in Beliz

Actually, to be perfectly honest, this seems like a very valid rule to me. The purpose of social security is to create a minimal income level for individuals, not to allow folks to collect duplicative payments from multiple government sources.

In this state, a teacher can retire, stay out of work 6 mos, then go back to teaching and draw her salary plus full retirement. This was supposed to have been temporary, but due to teacher shortage, it keeps being extended. So, I think the example of a teacher for WEP is a poor one. I think the rule affects very few people, so called “double dippers”

I would not call it double dipping. If a person contributes to Social Security for 10 years, then his benefits will only reflect 10 years of contributions… which is probably less than 15 percent of his salary. The WEP cuts that 15% by half. It’s not a fair provision. It robs folks of benefits that they rightfully earned.

What I don’t understand is why any COLA’s rec’d from
a prior job and attached to a yearly pension, that was
voted on by the governmental agency would be penalized
by the social security administration every five years.

I am a retiree from a county agency and have been living
in retirement for seven years and I feel that I have been treated unfairly by SSA after working in other jobs for over forty years, many of which contributed to
social security benefits and I am receiving such a small
amount from SSA due to the fact that the last place of
employment, (the county) did not contribute to Social
Security. I was immediately upon applying for Social Security at age 62 and a half years of age, penalized
by 20% of my normal earned benefits, and then again due
to the fact that my last employer did not pay into SS,
was docked another 20% from my benefits. This left me
with a very minimal amount of income to try to live on
monthly aside from my minimal pension benefit as I only
worked eleven years at my last place of employment. Needless to say, this COLA comes in handy each year as
it makes somewhat of a difference in my struggle to get
by. However, SSA finds it necessary to also feel free
to attach this with the explanation that they have paid
me too much when some calculation they come up with shows they payments exceeding what I normally would have rec’d had it not been for the Cost of Living Allowances I receive each year which only amounts to $27 more per month. Can someone explain to me why is
this necessary to penalize me for this also. I’m truly
puzzled. Combined, my pension and my social security benefits only amount to $900 per month. This makes it very difficult to live what with rent and buying food and all. I feel that the purpose for the COLAs is to
enable people who retired with limited income to have some relief from their struggle to make ends meets.

What nobody seems to understand is that if you worked for the government for 20 years and paid a FULL share into their MANDATORY retirement system and you worked for 20 years and paid a FULL SHARE into the MANDATORY social security system, then you should be ENTITLED to a FULL SHARE of your rightfully earned social security benefits!!! We have been fighting this with our congressmen and senators, but no one cares because they are waiting for all of us to DIE!!! Start speaking up now if you are also affected by this.

That’s all the damn politics and why SS is doing so?

This law is very unfair. My husband was in the military for over 21 years, where he paid into Social Security. Then he went to work at a sheriff’s office that would not allow him to pay social security.

I worked various job through out his career and was able to get 15 years into the Social Security System. In 1980 I took a state job and retired in 1995.

When we applied for SS benefits both of our checks were greatly reduced.

This will make you laugh, I get 386.00 a month from the State so they deducted that from my social security check and I receive $114.00 from SS. Can anyone live on that?

We were not told about this windfall(LOL)tax and based our retirement on the facts that our government sent us each year.

My husband’s SS check was cut too and he receives a little over $500.00 for almost 27 years of ss payments.
You can say what you want but I think that it is ashame that we treat our people this way. You work all of your life and are told you would get x amount of money. Then when the time comes they change the rules.

When I joined SS in the 1960, my contract with the Government was explained to me. I do not know how they can come back more then twenty years later and change the contract.

American’s beware this can happen to you too. Be sure you understand your benefits.

I may have made different career choice is I had known about this law. But I was not given the opportunity to make that choice. The government did not tell me of this law until I applied for benefits. I feel this is very unfair.

All those interested in WEP need to check out the WEP calculator at http://www.fedbens.us . It not only figures out exactly what the WEP reduction is in individual cases, it also provides a pretty good tutorial on how WEP works. (Also, it does the same for the Government Offset Provision.)

Check it out!

i may be wrong but it appears govemployee & pays to live grn may be under a misassumption here. retirees get no windfall of extra $ under SS. you get no SS unless you have worked enough qtrs to EARN it. What happens under WEP is if you earned SS but also get a public pension your SS is cut by way more than half (& sometimes to 0)of what it would be otherwise because you get a pension.
is that fair? you earned SS by paying into it while working under SS why should you not receive a benfit like anyone else? Thats why it is unfair. i dont want more but i do feel entitled to what i earned by paying into SS

I worked ,under s.s. long enough to draw $610.00 a month at age 62, according to S.S.A. When I filed for s.s., I was told that under the WEP rule I would draw $359.00 a month,which I’m drawing. Now I think our elected officials shafted me & many others. I think that if they are going to shaft us, we at least should get kissed, also. REPEAL WEP/GPO NOW!!!!!!!!

I have two questions. If a spouse of a teacher pays into Social Security for their entire working career (30+ years). Does the teacher receive any benefits if the spouse dies?
Does the state have the right to repeal this federal law that was sponsored by Mr. Barney Frank?

Your blog hit the nail right on the head about this rip-off being an unexpected surprise. I just turned 65 and was forced to retire here in the European country where I have lived and worked as a teacher for the past 16 years. My government pension from this country is only going to be 56% of my salary or 780 euros after taxes, because I didn’t work enough years here to be entitled to more before they legally dumped me. This ($1050 approx) is not nearly enough to live on anyplace, but I figured that the paltry $754 a month (500 euros or so depending on the exchange rate) of SS bennies from my prior years of working in the USA would almost make up the difference of my prior earnings. That was until I applied for my benefits and they told me about WEP. Surprise!!!

I did the calculation with their calculator and discovered that my SS benefit is now only going to be $416 or 306 Euros!!!! WTF can you do with that??? Live under a bridge and eat dogfood is about it. I feel like they are forcing me to become a beggar or a thief because there is no way you can live on that amount of money anywhere.

First off what is the justification of being penalized by almost half of an already measly sum for not paying social security to the US on money that I earned overseas and paid SS on to the country here? Was I supposed to pay double SS taxes all along? Where is the logic or justice in that. How is it a “Windfall” if I paid taxes on what I earned over here just like I did back in the USA? According to tax treaties you are exempt from income tax on foreign income because you can’t be taxed by two countries, so why not the SS tax too?

Furthermore, if I hadn’t worked at all during the past 16 years, and lived in the street or by leeching off of others, I would be able to get the full SS benefit from the US. So why am I suddenly going to lose half of it just because I worked and paid SS tax to another country during that time? If I am otherwide legitimately entitled to the full amount for the work I did in the States and paid taxes on, how does that suddenly change now that the country here is paying me a lousy 50% of my salary?? Where is the Windfall if not in the pockets of our politicans?

Worse yet, because I am retiring a year before my full retirement age of 66 (through no choice of my own) I am prohibited from working more than 45 hours a month during this year or I will lose my US SS benefit entirely. That might not be such a loss I suppose–$9/hr vs the $35/hr I can earn freelancing–except for the fact that unlike in the US, you can’t legally work while you receive a pension in this country and if you do, your earnings reduce your pension correspondingly. So it’s a lose/lose situation all around. The pension here used to be a real income and was intended to open up the job market to the younger generation, but that is only really true if you worked 45 years at a high paying job. More recently many retirees have been forced into working illegally off the books, which puts them in jeapordy of being busted for non-payment of taxes and of losing their pensions outright.

It is all very upsetting at getting a royal screw-job from both sides and feel very angry about it, particularly at the US government for once again benefiting the rich while throwing the rest of us to the wolves.

Anyone who falls under WEP and complains is someone who wants their cake and eat it too. Given the opportunity to choose being out from under the SS tax and investing this money myself, I know which I would choose. If a person wants to not be subject to WEP they should give back all the monies deposited into an account in their name, in lieu of SS taxes, along with investment return.

I don’t understand what you are talking about. There is no choice here since most people subject to WEP reductions didn’t have any idea that it existed until the day they applied for SS benefits and found out the sad facts. So how the Fxck can you choose not to be subject to WEP? Do you have a time machine we can go back to the past in and do it all over again? What monies and account in my name are you talking about that I should give back, or even could give back???? I worked 33 years from the age of 15 at jobs that automatically deducted SS tax. Then I moved to Japan and worked for 2 years and paid Japanese taxes and SS there, which is just money flushed down the toilet since I can’t get any benefits from them. After that I moved to Europe and have paid taxes and SS here.

Yes I am getting a pension here, but you can’t live on it without supplementing it because it is only 56% of the full amount, and in this country, unlike in the USA, you can’t work if you are getting a pension unless you return a proportional amount of the pension back to the government. So you lose both ways. I had expected that my $758 SS payment would make up the difference, but now it is only going to be $415, and that still leaves me short.

HOW EXACTLY DO YOU DEFINE $758 a month AS “HAVING YOUR CAKE AND EATING IT TOO”? What planet do you live on? Can anyone live on that amount in the USA or anywhere in the Western world? Can they live on even $1,800 a month and raise a child? Where is the WINDFALL here for me?
Meanwhile the CEOs and executives of Bear Stearns, AIG, Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac, GM, etc. are all getting bailed out bigtime from the very politicians that decided that I’m not entitled to the $758 in SS that I worked 33 years to earn because my inadequate foreign pension is somehow “excessive”.

The Windfall Elimination Provision is unfair and needs to be appealed. As a government employee, our personal department had advised me that I would be better switching my retirement system from the one I was then under, CSRS “Civil Service Retirement System” a retirment plan with no required Social Security component, to FERS “Federal Employees Retirement System” a Social Security component.
Basically, the “FERS” retirement is a three (3) part retirement system, that (1) pays the retiree a small goverment pension, (2) deducts for Social Security, and (3) offers to match a 401K option called a TSP “Thrift Savings Plan.

In 1986, and later in 1999, the goverment offered Federal Employees covered under the older retirement system “CSRS” to the newer “FERS”.

Some of the reasons many empoyees switched to the newer retirement system was that some had worked in private industry (covered by Social Security) and lose their Social Security eligibility working under the “CSRS” System. Other had switched from the CSRS to FERS system because of the investment potential of the goverment matching their TSP (401K).

The problem with employees who transferred is that they are subject to the Windfall Elimination Provision “WEP” that cuts the part of the pension (6.2%) they are now contributing if they do not complete 30 year of Social Security Credit. The part of their retiremtn covered under CSRS when they switched retirement does not properly compensate for the loss in pension money under the WEP.

For example, if an employee had stayed under the “CSRS” retirement, they would receive approx. 56% of their annual pay with full COLAS matching. Upon switching to “FERS” they would receive on 46% of their annual pay with reduced COLAS after the switch. Social Security is supposed to make up the 10% difference in retirement income but because the the WEP the retiree receives less.

Theorically, the government’s TSP (401K) matching option is supposed to make up for the difference in loss between the CRSS & FERS, however, significant factors play against this, first (1) is the WEP, and (2) the TSP component of retirement is taxable upon its withdrawal and not inflation protected.

The WEP law sucks! As a retired teacher in California I am only receiving 40% of my SS retirement.
I have a question………..
Since I only receive 40% of my SS retirement, I should only have to pay 40% of my medicare premiums?

Repeal Social Security Offset and Windfall Provision H.R.235.
This Provision is discriminating, againist gov, stat, firefighter,police officers and other public officials. I worked for the Gov for 30 years retired and receiving a pension. My husband worked for 30 years sel employed. My husband passed and I applied for his Social Security Widows benefits and denied due to this provisions they call it double dipping.

HELP REPEAL H.R.235

Does the WEP just pertain to social security benefits? Does it affect Veterans survivor benefits in any way? I am a teacher who plans to retire soon. I was aware I could never get social security benefits, but what about VA survivor benefits while receiving a teacher’s retirement pension?

Does the WEP work in reverse? If somebody inherits their spouse’s retirement benefits as a beneficiary, does this person lose his/her Social Security benefits?

The way the WEP Provision works makes no logical sense: it only penalizes those who didn’t earn enough quarters or a lot of money in covered employment and exempts those who did. That’s right, if you look at the calculator and charts you see that for each year there is a minimum amount you needed to have earned to have that year count towards a total mumber of years to make you exempt from WEP even though you get a pension from non-covered employment. If you are unlucky enough to have had low earnings or not enough years for that bar, but enough to get benefits, they cut those minimal paltry benefits as if you were a thief.

In my own case, I have a total of 32 years with some amount of SS earnings because I worked P.T. jobs beginning at age 14 until I graduated from college, and again when I went back to Grad school years later. Then there were a couple of years when I was on unemployment. So my earnings amount and number of years worked fell short of the bar.

I was told that if I had earnings for 36 years I would be exempt from WEP but because I didn’t earn enough in covered employment, I will lose half my already lousy benefit just because I am getting the minimal pension from the government of the foreign country where I live and have worked for 16 years. With either alone I can’t survive, but with both together I could maybe scrape by but that according to the government is “double-dipping” and makes me a thief getting what I’m not entitled to, so they cut my benefits to guarantee that as I age the lack of enough to live on will remind me of my “dishonesty”.

Will someone please explain how that is a “Windfall” when a windfall would seem to me to be the case of a person who earned a ton and so would get the maximum benefit along with a maximum pension from some other employment. That is, if even that can be constituted as a “Windfall” given the wealth most people in congress and government are able to amass as opposed to people who are just wage earners.

As it is, this provision penalizes those of us whose work was insufficient in both covered and non-covered jobs to get much of a pension in either, but might be able to scrape by with the two combined. However, according to our wonderful government, that is double dipping and so they cut your paltry benefit in half and leave you in the poorhouse, while they give the farm away in the form of windfall handouts to Haliburton, the auto manufacturers, the banks and all the other fat cats who robbed the country blind, screwed the pooch, but are being rewarded for doing it instead of going to jail. Something is rotten in Denmark!

It occurs to me that the windfall profit was designed to keep people like teachers from having their cake and eating it to as they do not pay into social security and have their own pension plans. For most, this seems fair. However, for those of us that are fully vested in the required quarters worked, it is by no means fair. I worked full time, paid my taxes and my social security allotment for over twenty years. I am now told that I must take a 40 to 50% cut in my social security because I worked in the educational arena for 23 year and paid no social security. I am not asking for benefits for the time I did not contribute, just for that that I did. It does not seem appropriate that I am looked at as a gold-digger for wanting what I earned and paid into. I am not asking for a hand-out, only what I paid for. Even the Bible states a workman is worth his hire. It is interesting that our country has consistently tried to underpay someone to do work for them and then expects those they abuse to like it. If you really look at the overview, isn’t that what has gotten us into the financial crisis with which we are presently dealing. We export all of our work to save monies and then wonder why we have nothing to export to stabalize the monies out monies in. We have even gone so far as to try and borrow against out indebtedness. Let me not digress. I only seek what I fairly earned and WEP denies that to me. On what equitable grounds?

It seems to me that the people hardest hit by this regressive piracy are teachers, and especially people who changed professions in mid-life to go into teaching. The injustice of this is exponential because teaching is an unappreciated, underpaid profession to begin with. Next, everyone blames teachers for the lousy state of public education, which is now even worse due to the laxity of both parents and government, but nobody in government is willing to actually put their money where their mouth is to fix the problem. Finally, after they finished whipping you and have sucked you dry, they then give you the coup de grace by cutting your already lousy S.S. Benefits by half because you “were taking advantage of the system”!! Frankly, if the state of the schools is abysmal, kids are undereducated, and the country is going down the tubes, I figure it is just a case of what goes around, comes around, and if you ask me if I care, you already can guess what my answer will be. Any country that treats its own citizens this shabbily has created its own failure.

Thinking about all the comments I read, it seems this WEP is the “redistribution of wealth” we keep hearing about with Obimbo’s policies and promises. If it started this many years ago, looks like he cannot take credit for it.

I am so glad to read these. I am 68 just retired. I worked in the private sector for some years and paid into SS as did my employer. Then when I was 56 I became a teacher. In the last two years of teaching I drew about 600.00 in SS and my paycheck as a teacher (I taught for 13 years) Long story short - I could only part of my SS if I claimed my pension, which is the larger of the two… SS overpaid me 2,089.00 and I have to pay it back or they withhold the money (250 I get) until it’s paid back. Then I hear about how the Wall Street wonders are paying 3,000 and up for sex and using business credit cards? and Daschle forgot to pay his taxes as did Ghenter? and oversight? for howmany years? They were right after me about my 2,089.00. I think I am going to a lawyer and appeal. Don’t know if it would do any good but I worked for the SS - and I should get it. I’d like to see the fat cats who are making several thousands a month live on what I do….

I am a retired teacher living on a pension. I worked in the past and earned enough quarters to receive the minimum monthly SS benefit. However, 40% of that is taken because of WEP. My SS benefit is $154.00 a month after medicare is taken out. My husband has recently been diagnosed with an aggressive malignant brain tumor. He receives SS now and is unable to work because of his illness. If he dies will 40% be taken out of my widow’s benefit?

The WEP also affects UK expats who recieve a UK goverment pension which has cost the US social security nothing!I am losing 50% of my UK pension with the reduction of my US social security all because I tried to improve my retirment ernings by paying into both systems. Seems very one sided to me.
Peter Letts.

Here’s some more information to absorb. I lived, worked and made mandatory payments, deducted by law, into the UK Social Security pension scheme from 1959 until 1990 In 1990 I married an American lady and went to live in the USA . As the UK pension didn’t kick in until 62 years of age or later I contributed voluntary payments from 19991 until 2008. Therefore approximately 60% of my payments were made by law and 40% were made voluntary.
I now receive my full UK pension which is sent to me in the USA.

From 1990 I started to work and contribute to Social Security in the USA. I have not started to draw Social security yet. However when I visited my local security office to speak about Medicare I was given extra information that I would be hit with the Windfall Elimination Provision due to the mandatory payments to the UK and USA Social security.

I thought this was unfair as 40% of my payments to the UK pension were voluntary. Voluntary payments are treated differently to mandatory payments. So I went to a tax lawyer, who agreed with my opinion and drafted a letter for me to take to the Social Security office when I am 66 years old to argue that the WEP should only apply to 60% of the money they would have reduced my USA pension by, not the full amount.

Otherwise I’m in the s@#t

You are correct Aitchem. The wep does not apply to any portion of your uk pension that was made up from vol,contributions, SS booklet from uk does state this. But as wep is applied to compensate for pensions that were not subject to deductions and your uk pension was subject to ss taxes in the uk. I would think this would be double taxation. We have a treaty with the uk to avoid double taxation. I can not find anyone able or willing to answer that question.

Well I recently got my first benefit payments and what they have done to me has made me very angry and depressed. I was entitled to $753 (not a large amount by anyone’s standards, right?) and WEP has reduced that to $413. What could anyone do with that tiny amount? You couldn’t even live in a flop house and still be able to eat with that. Since I live in Europe I receive that in Euros, so at the current exchange rate that was 322.50€, which added to my government pension of 878@ gave me a total of 1200€ a month for this month! If the euro goes back up to where it was in relation to the dollar last year (1€=$1.50)I’ll be getting almost 50€ less.

The truth is that if I was single, and not married with my wife still working and pulling in a decent salary, I would not be able to make it on that little money here. However being married and with a child at home it is demoralizing to not be able to bring in my share of the family income and I am handcuffed because under the rules of my pension I cannot work legally without giving back a proportional amount of it, and SSA rules forbid me to work until I am 66 if I am drawing benefits overseas. So the only way I can get any extra money is either to work under the table (and risk being caught and losing my benefits), beg on the street, or steal. Great choices huh?

Even worse, the family benefits my son receives (he’s only 8 and will get them until 18), which at half of mine would have been $377 ($45,000 after ten years), are now only $206($21,000 less after 10 years). And Convert that to euros and he’ll have practically nothing in the bank when he is 18. So instead of being able to build up some decent savings for his future, WEP has deprived my son of his chances for the future as well as ensuring that the end of my life will be miserable.

This is highway robbery plain and simple because I worked and paid in to SS for 32 years before moving overseas. So they have robbed me and my family of what we are entitled to in spite of the fact that my Gov’t pension here is only 56% of a full one because I didn’t work here long enough. How is that a WINDFALL? Meanwhile, the motherfcking rich get bailouts and tax breaks and laugh all the way to the bank to count the money Uncle Sam gives them willy nilly.

I’m so angry I could scream!

sorry about the multiple posts. It wouldn’t respond at first so I clicked again but I don’t know why it posted so many times or how to delete them now. Sorry!

I’ve brought some cheese so all you whiners can share…Why is screwed and blued child receiving my tax dollars overseas? Since HUSSEIN has taken over all I see is “what I’m entitled to…” and “waahh - I was a teacher and ONLY received 40% of SS” etc..How much is your taxpayer funded pension? In the most vile and corrupt state in the nation, MASSACHUSETTS, the public hacks receive 80% of their TOP 3 YEARS plus health insurance at the taxpayers cost. They (read that corrupt DEMOCRATS) have their little games to ensure they maximize their pensions (look up the former MA speaker of the House, the corrupt midget Billy Bulger - brother of convicted serial killer Whitey Bulger and member of the FBI’s most wanted list, just one example). I am so tired of public employees wanting more and more because they are entitled. This is what HUSSEIN has brought this country….

Excuse me? YOUR tax dollars? Where do you get off saying that? I’m an American Citizen and have paid Income tax all my life, including while living overseas. The fact that I live overseas does not negate any of my rights or obligations as an American Citizen. The SS benefits I am FULLY entitled to are based on covered income from 32 years of working IN the U.S.A. for which I paid SS and income tax. So I am entitled to them because I earned them by the sweat of my labor just like anyone else. Did you work for my money? NO!! I did! Your sorry butt had nothing to do with it, so get out of my face! Similarly, my son, for your information, is as much a U.S. citizen as you, and BY LAW is entitled to Family Benefits based on my SS benefits because when you retire your dependent children are entitled to them. It doesn’t matter where he lives–he’s a citizen and he gets them.

Furthermore, I have never been a public employee. I have always worked in the private sector, even as a teacher, so that other crap you’re spouting has nothing to do with me. If you had bothered to read my posts you would know that my pension is not funded by you or any other U.S. taxpayer but comes from the Social Security fund of the country I reside in, because I paid into it and have earned it with my tax monies here. But anyway, the pensions the other people on here are talking about were funded by them too since they paid taxes, so they are entitled to them too.

As to President Obama (I assume that is who you are referring to) he just got elected, so how could he have had anything to do with either the SSA, Massachusetts, or any other of your paranoid fantasies?

The Windfall Profit Elimination Provision enacted during Reagan under the premise that Civil Service employees was double dipping was mutted by the fact that “good ole” Ronnie got a Federal, State of California, Screen Actors Guild Pension, Social Security, etc… when he left office.
Guess it was ok for him! The Reagan administration was the #1 hypocritical admin until George W. Bush came along. The jury will be out for several years on Obama until his admin comes to an end. Obama pledged to eliminate the Windfall Profite Elimination Provision. We will see?????

The Windfall Elimination Provision of Social Security is not only unfair it is, as far as I am concerned, criminal. It takes away personal property without compensation.
In other words lets say a worker purchased retirement income from one source by paying into an account for lets say, a total of 10 years (40 quarters) . At some time in the middle of those years, the worker discontinues paying into the first account, and pays into a second retirement source. The worker pays into the account for the required number of years to qualify for the retirement plan.
When the worker decides to retire, the worker finds that some elected officials have decide to penalize the worker for having two plans or two bank accounts for his retirement plan.
I would like to know the legal basis to take away property from one person by a law, and yet exempt others, by the way, the exemption extends to the same public officials who mastered the WEP Provision.

Your example neglects to state that the opt out of social security was voluntary. A request had to be made to opt out. Secondly, there had to be a secondary plan into which the monies that would have been paid into soc sec would be paid. Most often these plans worked much like a cash plan and you could invest the monies yourself. The REAL problem is that most individuals having access to the second plan monies before social security age retirement spend it in lump sum payouts, or do not annuatize the monies in the second plan. Besides, it is hard to feel sorry for someone complaining about a maximum reduction of less than $300, when they very likely had monies invested in another plan worth far greater than the lost wep. My spouse is affected by the wep and the money in the second plan is worth far more than the soc sec benfit lost. Sorry, I don’t feel sympathy for you complainers who are not looking at the entire situation.

Dandy, I think you need to check your facts & try to get them right. I had no chance to opt in or out of S.S. My employer told me they did not pay into S.S. & I could pay into it myself while working for them. I worked long enough to get $610.00 a month from S.S. & when I retired & filed for my S.S., I was told by S.S. that due to the WEP, I could only get $359.00. I’m not asking for anything I don’t deserve, just what I earned. If you had any sense,you would not run your mouth about something you don’t know anything about!!!!!

To Ed Miller,
I totally agree with what you wrote to “Dandy”. But, unless the Social Security Administration has recently reversed past decision, you cannot participate into SSI and a second plan at the same time. You can re-enter the Social Security Plan after you leave the latter employer’s plan. I have also been advised that Opting in or out is not an individual option,unless possibly you can do so as a private contractor.

I can only hope that Congress sees the light and decides to leave the “dark side.
Harry at hkchildress@sbcglobal.net

I did not say that the employee had the choice to opt in or out. I merely said that opt out was voluntary. Your employer, or your decision to not work under the soc sec system made that decision for you. In doing so, a great benefit was given to you by not mandatorily having to pay into soc sec. That is the windfall that you received. If you take the amount of taxes into the soc sec that you did not pay, plus a bond return on investment that you could have gotten by investing that amount far outweighs the amount that you lost through wep. Why is this windfall so hard to understand?? Once again I will state. I wish that I had not been required to pay into the soc sec system. I would have taken that amount and invested it and retired even earlier than I actually did.

What part of “my money” that went into the Social Security Administrations Account, is so hard to understand. What part of “I paid for it, I should get it” is hard to understand. Retirement under Social Security was not intended to be a sole source of retirement income.

Did any of you whiners put any money away in regular savings aside from pensions, etc. I sure as hell have. I’m 55 and I’m not worrying about a thing with the house paid off long ago and all. My wife is still working, getting a salary, and drawing a pension from the state. Regular bank account savings on a consistent level, supplementing your iras and pensions is the key.

I as a civil service employee would like to see that WEP lifted for the simple reason that i worked and paid into social security. my salary will be cut almost in half. I have to help my mom, who is 84 years old and it is rough the way the economy is now. I feel like,i am entitled to my social security also.