📋 What is the Windfall Provision for Social Security? (AARP Article - updated)

Some other great stats.[NOT- 🤪

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has already paid billions of dollars in retroactive benefits to those affected by the repeal of WEP and GPO, with the average retroactive payment being $6,710

Total cost of the retro payments estimated by the CBO to cost the Trust Fund $200 BILLION over (10) years.  but they could not give an estimate on those who just had never filed for the benefit because they knew at the time it was fruitless to do so BUT NOW . . . . . they can file and reap the benefits.

Congress had the option of tweaking the WEP/GPO formula but instead they completely eliminated it.  

What the experts are saying about this reversal of a formula that helped save the Social Security Trust Fund in 1983 now will do it harm and at a time when the Trust Fund is already struggling because Congress fails to act.

Newsweek 01/07/2025 Will the Social Security Fairness Act Bankrupt SSA Trust Funds?

from the link ~

This major legislation restores full benefits to public sector retirees previously impacted by the WEP and GPO provisions. Biden stated the measure will raise Social Security benefits by an average of $360 monthly for 2.8 million recipients.

Jeffrey Liebman, Harvard Kennedy School Professor and Economist Who Worked on Social Security Policy for Presidents Clinton and Obama

It won't bankrupt Social Security, but it is a poorly crafted piece of legislation. There are better ways to spend $200 billion to support public sector employees and better ways to spend $200 billion to make Social Security more equitable.

Sylvester J. Schieber, Former Chairman, Social Security Advisory Board

The legislation will increase expenditures without increasing revenues. Thus, it will shorten the time until the trust fund is depleted. It is fairly small potatoes in the larger financing outlook.

The larger problem with the legislation is it gives workers who earn salaries not covered by Social Security disproportionately generous benefits compared to workers covered under the system for all their earnings.

It is an example of a well-organized special interest group claiming to be victims of unfair treatment in order to be treated more generously by public policy than 98 percent of other U.S. workers.

.. . .Unfortunately, Congress' willingness to boost benefits for some, without dealing with the system's inability to pay future benefits for all, foreshadows the continued inability of governing body to confront and solve the program's deep and ongoing red ink.

Charles Blahous, J. Fish and Lillian F. Smith Chair and Senior Research Strategist, Mercatus Center, George Mason University

The misnamed Social Security Fairness Act was grossly irresponsible legislation, even before considering its effect of weakening Social Security's finances.

Though the GPO and WEP were imperfect and widely misunderstood, some version of these mechanisms remains necessary.

Without the GPO, Social Security will mistake a spouse with their own state pension for a nonworking spouse, and mistakenly pay them a nonworking spouse benefit.

Without the WEP, Social Security will mistake someone with several years of higher-income state employment for a much-lower-income worker, and pay them an unintended benefit windfall.

The fact that this legislation will hasten Social Security's insolvency by giving a subset of workers additional benefits beyond those toward which they contributed payroll taxes only compounds the damage.

An exodus of responsible legislators from Congress enabled the passage of this law, and a re-emergence of responsible legislators will be needed to clean up the mess.

more at the link ~

Yea, Congresscritters are really looking out for Social Security beneficiaries - 

You know what, @SummerOnTheWay1, I cannot believe that there is not more outcry about this elimination of the WEP/GPO - are you upset about it?  I am.

An acquaintance of mine gets about $ 6000 a MONTH from her government pension.  She NEVER worked under the Social Security System but her husband did and he was a pretty high earner - but he died and she was not able to get any Survivors benefits because her government pension was so large it just zeroed it out.  

Now she has applied for her Survivors benefits since the elimination of the WEP/GPO - she will now get a benefit of $ 4000+ a month added to her pension + the amount of her retro-active pay which she got a few days ago was $ 42,000.00.

I agree that the WEP/GPO formula needed tweaking and there were several pieces of legislation that had already figured it out but these were passed over by our Congress for no other reason that to appease these government workers (and their unions) with a full elimination of the WEP/GPO - 

We have a problem - and that problem is gonna hit in just a matter of a few years - and it has nothing to do with who might be our President then or even in the meantime.