youbet
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In many cases people under WEP and GPO get a better deal than a similarly positioned private sector worker.
Can you give an example of one of these many cases?
In many cases people under WEP and GPO get a better deal than a similarly positioned private sector worker.
I'm rather unsure how this will affect us. Both have government pensions, but both paid into SS *except* for my very last two years of work. Not sure if that will cause GPO to kick in or not...
No affect if you have paid into social security for 30 years. If you receive a pension from work not covered by social security that is, otherwise it does not apply to you.
dixonge asked:
Are you sure that applies to GPO? I thought the 30 years of creditable contributions to SS only applied to WEP.
Can you give an example of one of these many cases?
..... In Illinois, there have been a number of teacher-driven attempts to get teachers onto SS. Distrust of the extremely mismanaged state pension system is a primary concern but the fact that SS is a "good deal" because there is employer matching comes into play as well.
Can you give an example of one of these many cases?
Can you give an example of one of these many cases?
2retireearly. First I had a hard time following your post. I don't mean that as any kind of challenge, It's most likely me.
So trying to keep my point simple:
A is married to B
A never payed into SS. B has, and retires with a $24,000 SS pension. A, therefore is entitled to a payment of $12,000 a year, and either surviving spouse to $24,000.
Now if A happens to have a pension from another job, they get do not get the $12,000. In neither case did A pay into SS. Up until about 199? A could work a day or so under SS and claim the $12,000. This was considered a loop hole and closed.
Therefore I stand on what I said. When the payment to the spouse does not depend on weather they paid into SS, as it clearly does not. In both cases A did not pay in. Than the system seem unfair.
Added: I also realize this is a waist of time, as SS does not have the funds to pay their current/future obligations, and the probability of this changing I think is less than 0%.
Just to be open, I am married to a teacher, however, she taught in a private school and this has no effect on us. My daughter is a teacher in a private school and because her husband worked for M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and was under the University of Texas retirement system, he will not be eligible to any SS based on his wife's salary, and while more money is always nice, it will not affect their retirement.
GPO can reduce your spousal and survivor benefit to zero, as it has for my young wife. And, as I mentioned before, it is unfair to ME, since I have to buy an insurance policy to cover the loss of my SS when I predecease the young wife, while my neighbor, whose wife never worked at all, does not, even though he and I paid exactly the same into SS.
That isn't what this is -- people who qualify for two pensions get two pensions. People who qualify, separately , for the social security system and a pension system should get both. A pension is not the same as social security. In GPO the social security benefit that was paid for and qualified for, is offset and reduced. This is a benefit that was earned. It is most definitely not the same as receiving the higher of two social security benefits.
The offset takes place to solve the issue of social security being skewed towards replacing a higher percentage of income for lower income folks. This is where the math gets tricky. as the uncorrected formula will weight a high income civil service worker with the minimum number of social security years as thou h/she was low income, for social security purposes.
At the very minimum people with two partial careers are penalized greatly. No way does this happen to people who earn two separate pensions
But the law does not determine whether or not my neighbor's wife will in fact be on welfare when he dies. Maybe she never worked because she is one of the Walton heiresses and did not need to work. If you want a means test, then push for that. Don't just assume the equities of the situation based on an anachronistic view of family economics.Spousal and survivor benefits under SS were primarily designed so that your neighbor's wife would not be on the public welfare rolls when your neighbor is no longer around. Seems likes this approach in GPO bends towards societal fairness to me given the design of SS.
But the law does not determine whether or not my neighbor's wife will in fact be on welfare when he dies. Maybe she never worked because she is one of the Walton heiresses and did not need to work. If you want a means test, then push for that. Don't just assume the equities of the situation based on an anachronistic view of family economics.
GPO is an "offset", and only a partial one - unlike a spouse that works a career in a FICA covered job. For a FICA career the offset is 100% of career earned SS benefits against spousal benefits. Under GPO you are better off than you would have been if you had paid FICA on your government salary.