Repeal Unjust Social Security Provisions That Harm Texas Public School Employees

Ask your members of Congress to repeal two unjust Social Security provisions that harm thousands of Texas public school employees.

Sample Letter for Campaign

Subject: Support the Social Security Fairness Act

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

I ask for your help in repealing two unjust Social Security provisions that hurt hundreds of thousands of teachers, school support personnel, police officers, firefighters, and other public servants. They reduce or eliminate Social Security benefits for retirees who receive pensions for non-Social Security-covered employment. They apply only to public pensions -- recipients of private pensions are not subject to such penalties.

While these Social Security benefit reductions may have been intended to curtail payments of windfall benefits to highly paid individuals, in practice they have had devastating consequences for low- and middle-income public employees. These provisions are the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). Each of these provisions can reduce monthly Social Security benefits drastically.

The GPO reduces a Social Security survivor's benefit by two-thirds of his or her public pension that is not covered by Social Security -- wiping out the survivor's benefit entirely for many workers. The WEP currently can take away up to $328 a month of Social Security benefits earned by a state or local public employee who has contributed to Social Security for as many as 20 years, and the WEP does not phase out completely until a worker has 30 years of covered Social Security employment.

Besides being unfair to those who have paid into Social Security but are being denied its full benefits, these provisions have perverse effects. By targeting pensions of teachers and other school employees, these Social Security benefit cuts discourage qualified individuals from entering the classroom--at exactly the time when our nation faces a severe shortage of such people.

Bipartisan legislation introduced in the current session of Congress would repeal these two provisions. The House version of the bill, H.R. 147, by Rep. Howard McKeon, Republican of California, now has 323 cosponsors--more than two-thirds of the House membership. A Senate companion version, S. 619, filed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, has 28 Senate cosponsors. I urge you to lend your support to a discharge petition to release the bill from the subcommittee where it has been buried by the leadership, thereby forcing a floor vote on the bill before the current session of Congress ends in January. Cosponsoring the legislation is only the first step; signing onto a discharge petition, which requires 218 signatures, is the way to make that cosponsorship really meaningful by actually bringing the bill to a vote.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
September 14, 2005

Background Information

Social Security Benefit Cuts Target Texas School Employees
The vast majority of Texas teachers and other school employees work in school districts that do not participate in the Social Security system. A nasty surprise awaits many of these teachers and other education employees when they retire.

These education employees may think that they have qualified for full Social Security benefits, based on their own work for other employers who did take part in Social Security, or based on their spouse's work at a job covered by Social Security.

However, when they retire these educators find out that their Social Security benefits are cut--in some cases even eliminated--because federal law deems their TRS pension a "windfall" that justifies cutting their Social Security benefits.

For more information on these unfair provisions, visit http://www.tft.org/legis/ss.cfm.