Senator Feinstein Urges Finance Committee Members to Approve Measure to Protect Retirement Benefits for Public Service Workers

U.S. Senator, Nov 29, 2007

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) urged members of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions and Family Policy to approve a measure she has introduced to protect retirement benefits for public service workers.

The Subcommittee today held a hearing on two provisions of the Social Security Act—the “Government Pension Offset” and the “Windfall Elimination Provision”—which effectively reduce the retirement benefits earned by public employees such as teachers, police officers, and firefighters.
Earlier this year, Senator Feinstein and Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced a measure to repeal those two provisions.

Following is the text of the statement submitted by Senator Feinstein to the Subcommittee hearing:

“Mr. Chairman, I first would like to thank the members of the Finance Committee for scheduling this afternoon’s hearing on protecting retirement benefits for our nation’s public service workers.

It is critical that we attract and retain the most qualified individuals for careers in public service. 
But today, nearly one million federal, state, and municipal public employees are unfairly held to a different standard when it comes to their retirement benefits. 

In California alone, the problem affects about 200,000 workers.

The cause:  two provisions of the Social Security Act—called the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision—which unfairly reduce the retirement benefits earned by public employees such as teachers, police officers, and firefighters .

These two provisions were originally designed—the Government Pension Offset in 1977 and the Windfall Elimination Provision in 1983—to prevent public employees from being unduly enriched.

But today, the practical effect is that those providing critical public services – teachers, firefighters, and police officers – are unjustly penalized.

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