Windfall Elimination Tax and Senate bill HR 82

[havasu]

A back story which is 40 years old.

I worked the private sector for 15 years before being a cop, and I paid into social security for all these years. Obviously, once I became a cop, we didn't pay into social security, but once I retired and started drawing my rightfully paid social security, I found out that because I drew a government pension, I was penalized and the government took away 40% of my rightfully earned social security, and where I was suppose to receive $1800 a month SS, my penalty reduced this amount to $600 per month.

Well, with the help of calling over 100 senators from across the country, us penalized first responders convinced the senators, members of the Congress, and the House of Representatives that this was truly unfair. Well, last night, HR 82 finally went to a vote. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul didn't feel we were deserving of receiving our own money back, and tried 4 different variations (which would cause the bill to stall forever), these variations were declined. At 1am EST, the bill was passed, and now sitting on Biden's desk for a signature on Monday morning.

Well, provided Biden doesn't die before Monday, it looks like I will get a $1000 per month raise starting next month.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[d_marsh]

Nice. I am 100% okay with anyone who serves their country, state, county, city, whatever getting their due. Especially if you paid in. But I also really like politicians who hate spending or allocating money for anything.

 

[havasu]

I agree 100%. but this is not something we are getting for free, just what any normal tax paying citizen would get, minus our penalty.

 

[Mountain trapper]

That money has to come from somewhere, maybe reduced COLAs in the future? I'm probably with Ted Cruz and Rand Paul on this.

 

[havasu]

You are aware that the government has been stealing money from OUR Social Security Fund in order to subsidize the illegal aliens who jumped the border yesterday. Now this is a hill I would proudly stand on and die for. These people do not deserve the money I paid into as a means for me to retire comfortably on. Remove this issue, and we would save substantially way more than the 10% of first responders who paid into social security for many years before changing careers.

 

[DrHenley]

My opinion is that if they STEAL some of your benefits, then you should be refunded some of the SS tax they took out of your paycheck under false pretenses. In the private sphere this is called FRAUD.

 

[Alaskajohn]

Help me out here. My understanding of the change is that individuals who didn’t participate equally in contributing to social security will now get the same as those who did.

Take 2 people as example:

-One worked 40 years, all where the person contributed to social security.
-One worked 40 years, where 20 where they contributed to social security and 20 years where the person didn’t contribute to social security but contributed to a system that earned a pension.

The change now says the 2nd person should get the same social security benefits as the first. Why is this right or fair? Sounds unfair to the first person.

Maybe I don’t understand the change correctly, but this is how I read the bill.

 

[havasu]

This explains it better...

https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/landmark-victory-gpo-and-wep-repealed

 

[havasu]

Help me out here. My understanding of the change is that individuals who didn’t participate equally in contributing to social security will now get the same as those who did.

Take 2 people as example:

-One worked 40 years, all where the person contributed to social security.
-One worked 40 years, where 20 where they contributed to social security and 20 years where the person didn’t contribute to social security but contributed to a system that earned a pension.

The change now says the 2nd person should get the same social security benefits as the first. Why is this right or fair? Sounds unfair to the first person.

Maybe I don’t understand the change correctly, but this is how I read the bill.

Not correct.

Like my instance, I worked 15 years private sector, and worked 30 years public sector. If all was fair, I should receive 15 years worth of social security benefits to coincide with my 30 year government pension. What the government decided was when figuring how much I was due, they saw that since I had a government pension, instead of receiving my 15 years of social security retirement, they said, "well, you have a government pension, so we are penalizing you and giving you just 5 years of social security."

To answer your question, if you worked 40 years, where 20 years you contributed into social security, you would be eligible for 20 years of social security. As it is currently, your penalty would be penalized 66%, and only eligible for 6 1/2 years of social security.

 

[Tootsie]

Oh no. I didn’t know all that about social security. As a stay at home mom, who ‘only’ worked about 10 years, does that mean that at the end of collecting for 10 years, I’m done? This will definitely make a difference in plans.

 

[old tex]

I'm sure there are all kinds of tax "catches" like that. The military had one like that where if you got disability pay they reduced your retirement pay. President Bush did away with that in his last term (Bush 2). The one I never got over was Congress voting away the military's free healthcare for life. I never got over it for 2 reasons. 1. Both my wife & I had already earned that benefit BEFORE it was voted away. 2. I was in the OLD MILITARY where we were paid peanuts & for my first 12 years I earned just a little more than welfare. I kind of felt that we EARNED that coverage & had already paid for it with the substandard pay.

 

[Mountain trapper]

This bill will cost SS $196,000,000,000 (196 billion) over 10 years. SS is scheduled to run out of money by 2038. I'm guessing that they'll reduce benefits, raise retirement age, raise SS taxes, or all of the above. On the surface, now that I read the bill, I don't have a problem with it. What I do have a big problem with is people receiving any SS benefits who have never paid in to it. Cutting off these people will help some, but it's not a complete solution. And absolutely zero illegal aliens should ever receive a penny of taxpayers money.

 

[havasu]

Oh no. I didn’t know all that about social security. As a stay at home mom, who ‘only’ worked about 10 years, does that mean that at the end of collecting for 10 years, I’m done? This will definitely make a difference in plans.

This will also affect spouses and possibly you could benefit from it.

 

[havasu]

This bill will cost SS $196,000,000,000 (196 billion) over 10 years. SS is scheduled to run out of money by 2038. I'm guessing that they'll reduce benefits, raise retirement age, raise SS taxes, or all of the above. On the surface, now that I read the bill, I don't have a problem with it. What I do have a big problem with is people receiving any SS benefits who have never paid in to it. Cutting off these people will help some, but it's not a complete solution. And absolutely zero illegal aliens should ever receive a penny of taxpayers money.

Yes, they did say this is a $200B increase, but those numbers also include the border jumpers, and the horrible decision to provide them with free medical.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Oh no. I didn’t know all that about social security. As a stay at home mom, who ‘only’ worked about 10 years, does that mean that at the end of collecting for 10 years, I’m done? This will definitely make a difference in plans.

I believe that whatever your 10 years of work calculates to is what your SS benefit will be for life, plus whatever COLA there may be annually. You can get on the SS website and get your exact numbers based on when you want to retire.

 

[Mountain trapper]

For the last 25 or so years of employment I checked at least once a year on what my expected SS income would be. I ran the estimates on many different possible retirement dates. I didn't want any surprises when the big day finally came. I "retired" at 57 and waited until 64 to start collecting SS. Of course I started saving and investing for retirement in my early teens with the assumption that SS wouldn't be around when I retired. Financially we can get by just fine without SS. For us SS is like a bonus. The wife will start drawing her SS in 2 years, and that will double our bonus $$.
I guess the moral here is to start early and invest like it'll be your only source of income in old age.