President Joe Biden has signed the Social Security Fairness Act into law. It removed the drastic Reagan-era cuts in Social Security income that millions of public employees had earned during the times that they paid into the fund.
Not only will those workers start receiving the same Social Security benefit as those who did not fall under public pension plans, the payments will be retroactive to January 2024. As many as three million retirees can look forward to big checks.
The Social Security Fairness Act eliminates the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), measures which unfairly reduced Social Security benefits for public sector retirees who receive a public pension—or the spouse or survivor of a Social Security beneficiary—who worked in a job not covered by the Social Security program.
The WEP and GPO have long upset public employees and their unions. They disproportionately affected lower-income workers and women.
Although many groups have advocated for the Social Security Fairness Act, kudos for the main victory goes to organized labor, and particularly to its retiree organization, the Alliance for Retired Americans.
ARA, based in the AFL-CIO’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, has active chapters and supporters all over the nation who planned, lobbied, and carried out actions for the bill.
In response to the passage and signing of the bill, the ARA said that “for too long, the government has taken away Social Security benefits from millions of retired federal, state, and local government employees who worked as teachers, police, firefighters, postal workers, and general employees—benefits they earned when they worked other jobs.”
The organization said that as a result of Saturday’s vote and Biden’s Sunday signing, “millions of Americans will finally have the retirement they earned.”
According to Gene Lantz, president of the ARA’s Texas chapter, American seniors can celebrate a number of victories as 2024 closes and 2025 begins. Exit polls showed that the “over 65” vote shifted toward the Democrats in November’s election. Some polls showed that the senior vote had gone over to the Democrats for the first time this century.
Drug prices will fall this January thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act. Big Pharma had been able to raise drug prices far higher than the inflation rate for many years. Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid have not, so far, suffered damage from the many Republicans who hate them. In fact, Social Security recipients will see a 2.5% bump in Social Security payments. For all these blessings, Lantz says, seniors “can give large credit to organized labor and the ARA.”
Looking forward and backward, Lantz says organized labor is recovering from mistakes they made after World War II when they accepted employer-offered pensions and health care instead of pushing for better Social Security and the national health care that workers in many European countries achieved.
In the future, thanks to this year’s accomplishments, union retirees and their progressive supporters have some victories to inspire the unity they will need as they face what is coming.
Organizing is paying off for America’s seniors.
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