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How the windfall elimination provision and government pension offset affects public employees

If you receive a pension from a job that did not deduct FICA taxes (Federal Insurance Contributions Act), your benefits from Social Security will be affected by the windfall elimination provision (WEP) and the government pension offset (GPO). For those years you did not pay FICA taxes, your earnings are not posted to Social Security Administration records and they appear as “zero years” for benefit computations. Then Social Security calculates your benefit using the average indexed monthly earnings during the 35 years in which you earned the most. Social Security is a progressive program which means they represent a higher proportion of a worker’s previous earnings for workers at lower earnings levels; those workers who worked outside the Social Security system and earn pensions from that work are not low-income workers. Elliot Raphaelson’s article appearing on www.buffalonews.com, explains how WEP and GPO affect public employees. Read Mr. Raphaelson’s article here…

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Comments On This Topic

  1. You might as well only work for one food service place. I’ll explain. Ok, say you work for McDonalds, and earn a minimum retirement, then you go to Burger King and earn a minimum retirement. So you get to the age to withdraw them and the government steps in and says, wait; you worked in the food industry, you can only draw one pension because if you draw both your double dipping because they are both in the food industry. Paying into SS for 45 years stands by itself. Paying into CSRS for 30 years stands by itself also. But these senators felt ah you drawing 2 pensions from the government, you can’t have both. Really? So what? You participated in two different jobs, you participated in two different systems, now you can only have one of them. What a rip off. Sure there are people out there that never worked in a job that paid into SS, it was all Civil Service, but don’t penalize people who have legally vested in both systems.

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