Baton Rouge Reporter

U.S. Representatives Garret Graves (R-LA-06) and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07) have officially filed a discharge petition to prompt a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on their bipartisan legislation aimed at eliminating the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO).

The Social Security Fairness Act, introduced by Graves and Spanberger, seeks to remove these provisions from the Social Security Act of 1983. The WEP and GPO currently reduce or eliminate Social Security benefits for millions of Americans who have spent significant portions of their careers in public service roles such as police officers, firefighters, and educators. The bill has garnered 326 cosponsors, surpassing the 218 signatures required on the discharge petition to bring it to a floor vote.

“For more than 40 years, millions of Americans who paid into Social Security during their careers have been stripped of their retirement benefits — retired police officers who began second careers after retiring from the force, retired teachers who took a summer job, retired federal employees who spent a portion of their careers in the private sector, retired firefighters who worked a second job, or other retired public servants who contributed to Social Security during their careers. We cannot drag our feet on addressing this basic issue of fairness,” said Graves and Spanberger. “Our legislation to eliminate these unjust penalties on public servants is supported by a bipartisan coalition of 326 lawmakers — far more than the majority needed for the discharge petition to succeed or for the bill to pass on the U.S. House floor.”

Graves and Spanberger continued, “Our Social Security Fairness Act is tied as the second-most cosponsored bill in the U.S. Congress. With broad support from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, we must use every mechanism available to us to finally right this wrong for millions of Americans who serve our communities, keep our neighbors safe, and keep our country strong. We look forward to our bill’s cosponsors and our colleagues joining us in working to make sure all Americans receive the retirement security they earned.”

Graves and Spanberger reintroduced the Social Security Fairness Act in January 2023 at the start of the 118th Congress. In November 2023, they urged the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee to hold a hearing on reforms related to WEP and GPO; such a hearing was held later that month. By March 2024, they called for further action by urging a markup session on their bipartisan act.

Currently, WEP reduces earned Social Security benefits for individuals receiving public pensions from jobs not covered by Social Security—such as educators working part-time or summer jobs covered by Social Security but not earning it through public school employment. Similarly, GPO affects spousal benefits for federal, state, or local government employees whose jobs are not covered by Social Security; it reduces surviving spouses' benefits by two-thirds if they also collect government pensions.

The WEP impacts approximately two million beneficiaries while nearly 800,000 retirees are affected by GPO.