Spanberger & Graves Lead the Bipartisan “Social Security Fairness Act” Which Would Provide Long Overdue Fairness to Public Servants by Eliminating the Windfall Elimination Provision & Government Pension Offset

**Click Here to Watch a Full Recording of the Hearing**

BATON ROUGE, La. — U.S. Representatives Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07) and Garret Graves (R-LA-06) today released the following statement after the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Social Security held a hearing on how two provisions of the Social Security Act — the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) — are denying public servants their hard-earned retirement benefits.

“For more than four decades, the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset have slashed the Social Security benefits earned by millions of Americans who served their communities and their fellow Americans,” said Spanberger and Graves. “We commend the House Ways and Means Committee for prioritizing this simple issue of fairness, hearing directly from Americans affected by these unfair provisions, and shedding more light on the impacts on retired police officers, educators, firefighters, and public employees. But a hearing alone will not connect Americans who devoted much of their careers to public service with the benefits they earned.”

Spanberger and Graves continued, “Our bipartisan Social Security Fairness Act would finally repeal both the WEP and GPO, and has broad bipartisan support among 300 lawmakers in the U.S. House — far more than the majority necessary for the bill to pass. We urge the Committee to build upon this current momentum and take the final steps necessary to send our legislation to the U.S. House floor for a vote. Because Virginians, Louisianans, and Americans across the country who paid into Social Security deserve their full retirement benefits — just like everyone else.”

BACKGROUND

Spanberger and Graves reintroduced the bipartisan Social Security Fairness Act in January 2023 at the start of the 118th Congress. The legislation now has the support of more than 300 Members of Congress — both Republicans and Democrats.

Currently, the WEP reduces the earned Social Security benefits of an individual who also receives a public pension from a job not covered by Social Security. For example, educators who do not earn Social Security in the public schools but who work part-time or during the summer in jobs covered by Social Security have reduced benefits, even though they pay into the system just like others. Likewise, the GPO affects the spousal benefits of people who work as federal, state, or local government employees — including police officers, firefighters, and educators — if the job is not covered by Social Security. The GPO reduces by two-thirds the benefit received by surviving spouses who also collect a government pension.

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