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House lawmakers in Washington have the signatures they need to force a vote on a bill to eliminate rules that reduce Social Security benefits for certain retirees who also receive pension income.
On Thursday morning, Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Garret Graves, R-La., marked the 206 signatures a discharge petition had thus far collected with a press conference outside the Capitol building alongside organizations representing police, firefighters, postal workers, teachers and other government employees often affected by those rules.
By Thursday afternoon, the number of signatures had climbed to 218, enough to force a vote on the bill.
The bipartisan bill — the Social Security Fairness Act — would repeal rules known as the Windfall Elimination Provision, or WEP, and the Government Pension Offset, or GPO, that currently reduce Social Security benefits for almost 3 million Americans.
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“We have taken on, on a bipartisan basis, something that’s just completely unjust, that has been going on for over four decades,” Graves said.
“This is a situation where you have some of the most important occupations, some of the most important contributors to our community, that are being discriminated against,” he said.
How WEP, GPO rules affect retirement decisions
The Windfall Elimination Provision reduces Social Security benefits for individuals who receive pension income from public roles that did not contribute Social Security payroll taxes — but who also paid into the program and qualified for benefits through other work. The WEP affects about 2 million Social Security beneficiaries.
The Government Pension Offset, meanwhile, reduces spousal benefits for federal, state or local government employees who did not contribute to Social Security payroll taxes. The GPO affects almost 800,000 retirees.
The rules can force affected workers to make tough retirement decisions.
That includes Lois Carson, president of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees, who said during Thursday’s press conference that the rules affected the decisions she made to support her family after her husband passed away. While Carson was able to receive income from his pension, she was not able to access Social Security survivor benefits, as she and her husband both…
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