Washington, DC - Patrick Yoes, National President of the Fraternal Order of Police, and Ed Kelly, General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) stood on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol to demand that Congress consider and pass H.R. 82/S. 597, the “Social Security Fairness Act.”
For the first time, the nation’s oldest and largest law enforcement labor organization and the country’s oldest and largest fire fighter’s union united on Capitol Hill in an effort to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO).
“I hope that Congress hears the message from our police and fire fighters loud and clear today,” Yoes said. “The passage of the Social Security Fairness Act is long overdue. For 40 years, the trust fund has been balanced on the backs of our public servants. It is time for this injustice to end.”
“We are proud to partner with the nation’s largest law enforcement labor organization to shine a light on this unfair legislation that deprives public servants of their rightly earned retirement income. It’s time for Congress to act and repeal the WEP/GPO,” Kelly said.
The WEP affects workers who spent some time in jobs not covered by Social Security and who also worked other jobs where they paid Social Security taxes long enough to qualify for the benefits. Like the WEP, the GPO may reduce the benefit received by surviving spouses if these spouses also receive a surviving spousal benefit from a public pension. The “Social Security Fairness Act,” which has more than 300 cosponsors in the House and a majority of the Senate would repeal both the WEP and the GPO.
“WEP and GPO penalize and defund our firefighters and police officers. These people put their lives on the line to protect our communities and keep us safe – we should be taking care of them, not taking away their hard-earned retirement benefits" said Representative Garret N. Graves (R-LA). "Folks on the front line have been wrongly penalized by these deeply flawed, outdated penalties for decades; current policy gets it wrong, and it needs to be fixed. I am proud to lead the national effort to fully repeal both WEP and GPO and will continue to fight for Social Security fairness.”
“For years, I’ve been proud to help lead the ‘Social Security Fairness Act’ to make sure that police officers, firefighters, Federal workers, educators, and public employees across Virginia and across the United States receive the retirement security that they earned by dedicating their careers to serving their communities,” said Representative Abigail A. Spanberger (D-VA). “There is a strong consensus—among more than 300 Members of Congress across the political spectrum and a broad coalition of Americans—that public servants deserve the full retirement benefits they are currently being denied. I’m proud to continue working with Congressman Graves as we endeavor to protect the hard-earned Social Security benefits of retired public servants who earned them, press the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee to move this bipartisan fix forward by holding a markup on our ‘Social Security Fairness Act,’ and get this bipartisan legislation to the president’s desk as soon as possible.”
Yesterday, both Representatives sent a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee asking that H.R. 82 be marked up.