Q: Will you please tell me the status of the bill to repeal the Social Security offset? When is Congress ever going to put the ax to the stupid and unfair offset law that hurts all of us retired government employees?

A: Well it's time for me to clear some space in my inbox because I'm going to get flooded with e-mails and letters telling me what a fool I am.

This happens every time I write a column about the dreaded "Social Security offset." And the reason it happens is because I think the offset is eminently fair and the offset law should NOT be repealed. And by the way, that opinion is coming to you from a retired federal employee (me) whose own Social Security benefits will be reduced by the offset.

Before I explain AGAIN why I think the law is fair, I must help other readers understand what we're talking about.

Most employees in this country have Social Security taxes withheld from their paychecks. But a small fraction of workers, about 10 percent, are not covered by Social Security. Most of these employees are state or local government workers who are covered by their own pension plan, not Social Security. Or they are older federal employees who are covered by the Civil Service Retirement System. (Federal employees hired after 1983 pay into Social Security.)

If you will get a pension from a job where your employer does not withhold Social Security taxes, but you have paid enough of those taxes in other jobs to qualify for a Social Security retirement benefit, that benefit probably will be reduced because of your government pension. The law requiring this reduction is called the "Windfall Elimination Provision."

The same government pension will offset, and usually eliminate, any Social Security benefits you might be due on a spouse's Social Security record. The law requiring this is called the "Government Pension Offset."

These two separate provisions, the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision, are usually lumped together by most people impacted by the laws and referred to as the Social Security offsets. Or to be more precise, they are usually called "those (expletive deleted) Social Security offsets."

And almost every year since these offsets were implemented about 25 years ago, some members of Congress — usually those representing districts with many government employees — introduce legislation to eliminate the offsets. And every year, these bills go down to defeat. They are routinely defeated because most members of Congress recognize, as I do, that the offsets are fair and make sense.

The Government Pension Offset, the one that keeps most government employees from collecting spousal benefits from their husband's or wife's Social Security record, is easy to explain.

It merely treats a government pension in the same way as the law has always treated a Social Security retirement pension. If you collect a high Social Security retirement benefit, that benefit offsets any dependent's benefit you might potentially be due as a wife or husband on your spouse's Social Security record. The GPO rule simply says we will treat a government retirement pension the same way. If you get a high government pension, you won't get a dependent's benefit from Social Security. (Before the GPO was implemented, government employees were the only people in the country who received both a comfortable retirement pension AND a Social Security dependent's benefit.)

The Windfall Elimination Provision is a little more complicated to explain. The Social Security benefit formula has always been skewed so that low-income workers get a higher rate of return from Social Security. That doesn't mean they get higher monthly benefits. But as a percentage of what they kicked into the system, they get a better deal than their higher-paid counterparts.

Before the WEP law was enacted, government employees who were getting comfortable retirement pensions from their employers but who also spent time at a job paying into Social Security received monthly Social Security checks using the benefit formula intended to compensate low-income workers. The WEP rules simply change their Social Security compensation formula so they get a rate of return comparable to most middle-class workers in this country.

Sorry folks, but the WEP and GPO rules are fair and should not be repealed.

To find out more about Tom Margenau and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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