ATLANTA — It was not until Verdaillia Turner went to fill out the paperwork for her retirement from Atlanta Public Schools that she had any idea that she might not receive the Social Security benefits she paid into over the years.
“I’ve always worked another job at the same time that I was teaching school. All of my life. I’ve been working since I was 16,” Turner said.
But a federal law that dates back to 1983 called the Windfall Elimination Provision - nicknamed WEP - and the government pension offset reduce Social Security benefits for nearly 3 million Americans, mostly public servants who receive a pension from a job that did not pay Social Security taxes, even if other jobs they held through the years did pay into Social Security.
“What happens is that we are unduly penalized. We don’t get the money that we paid into,” Turner said.
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Turner is one of between 50,00 and 70,000 Georgians impacted by WEP.
But this month, in an overwhelming bipartisan vote, the House of Representatives passed the Social Security Fairness Act that would eliminate WEP.
“These are firefighters who worked a second job to make ends meet, police officers who began a second career after leaving the force, teachers who took a summer job to cover the bills,” said Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D – VA.
“This has been 40 years, 40 years of treating people differently,” said Rep Garrett Graves, R – LA.
In our series of stories investigating Social Security overpayments in collaboration with KFF Health News and our Cox Media Group sister stations, we’ve learned that WEP can lead to overpayment clawbacks by the federal government.
People like Ron Bonasso, a retired postal worker now working two jobs in retirement to pay back a $7,500 overpayment tied to WEP.
“There’s a whole bunch of us who have been retired all these years, who have gotten screwed by Social Security,” Bonasso said.
The bill has 63 cosponsors in the Senate including Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
There are concerns about the price tag that could run into the billions of dollars for the already troubled Social Security trust fund.