Protecting Our Social Security Benefits

(This article appeared in the July/August 2010 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

Judy Beard, Director

Many postal employees and retirees who depend on Social Security benefits to supplement their postal annuities are wondering: How much income can I count on in years to come?

Postal employees who retired under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and who also worked in the private sector thought they could determine their income by adding their postal annuity and their Social Security benefits. Much to their surprise, they found out: What Congress giveth, Congress can taketh away.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Congress changed the law that allowed CSRS retirees to collect the Social Security benefits they were expecting from their jobs in private industry. The Government Pension Offset (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) have had a negative impact on federal and postal employees and their survivors.

We have been told that one reason for the change was to prevent us from receiving too much money — both a postal or federal annuity and a full Social Security check. Yet the Retirees Department receives many phone calls and letters with sad stories about how GPO and WEP have driven retired postal employees and their survivors into poverty.

Members of Congress continue to co-sponsor legislation to repeal the GPO and WEP (H.R. 235 and S. 484), and rescinding them has been one of APWU’s legislative priorities. However, our efforts, along with the work of NARFE, the Alliance for Retired Americans and other retiree groups, have not achieved the results we hope for.

Now, retirees, including those under the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS), face the threat of additional reductions in benefits. Members of President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility Reform may have their eyes on Social Security cuts. According to Mother Jones magazine, the bi-partisan debt commission co-Chair, former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, “has described his mission as ‘saving’ the United States from ‘insolvency’ by hacking away at entitlements.”

We want a commitment that the deliberations of the commission will be transparent so that we know what is being considered before the panel issues recommendations to Congress.

If Social Security is being threatened by our legislators, we have a responsibility to remind them that Social Security funds come from taxpayers and employers, not from the federal government. Contact your Congressional representative and talk to your family and friends to let them know you are against any reduction in the benefits that working families and seniors depend on.

For more information on the President’s Financial Commission please visit the commission’s website at www.fiscalcommission.gov.

Retiree Photo Contest Winner, Round 2

Our Next Photo Challenge 
The Retirees Department is looking for your historical memorabilia of postal unionists in action — on the job, at meetings, or on the picket line! Please send us copies of your pre-1975 photographs, slides, film, articles, old contracts, posters, picket signs, badges and flyers. Please indicate if the APWU can keep these items as part of our archives. If you want your items to be returned, please include a return address.