Counting down the days. Will the Senate vote to restore our earned benefits?
I’m not complaining about my Illinois teacher pension.
I’m no Elon Musk, but I can pay my bills.
I taught 30 years and paid nearly ten percent of my salary into the the Illinois pension system with the promise that the state of Illinois would also contribute.
The idea was that together with the investments returns, my income as a senior would be pretty good and pretty secure.
For a while it didn’t seem so secure.
The Illinois state legislature wasn’t as good as teachers were in paying their share. The legislature’s failure created an enormous debt. The legislature’s solution to their funding negligence was to reduce benefits. But in 2013 the Illinois Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state’s unambiguous constitutional language (“public pensions cannot be reduced or impaired”) meant what it said.
All during that time I was active, along with teachers across the state of Illinois, organizing to preserve our pension rights. The Illinois court decision was an enormous victory. The truth is that all during that fight I never actually sat down to calculate what I personally would have lost if the Court had ruled the other way.
Only later did I do it and, boy, was it some serious money.
I came to teaching late in life. Prior to going into the classroom, I had worked in the private sector and paid, along with my employer, into Social Security.
What I didn’t know, and what many career changing teachers in more than a half dozen states with public pension systems did not know, is that by becoming a teacher meant losing most of the benefits (and death benefits) that we and our employers earned and contributed into Social Security.
For me it amounted to more than two decades of contributions.
Gone.
Pfft. Just like that!
Pension theft.
Again.
The culprits were two federal laws called the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP).
Every congressional session over the past several years has seen a bill to undo the WEP/GPO win the support of an overwhelming number of congress members.
But they never have brought it to a vote. It seemed more performance than serious.
The Democrats, when they were in a majority, could have done it.
So could the Republicans when they were in a majority.
So, I figured we were done with it.
Stealing my Social Security. The perfect crime.
But in what was a surprise to me, the House passed it earlier this session.
And with only four days left in the Senate before they adjourn and Republicans take over the chamber, repealing the WEP/GPO will come to the Senate floor for a vote.
Call your Senators
I have never actually sat down and calculated what I have lost these past twelve years of retirement because of the WEP/GPO. I don’t know what I will get if it passes and is signed by President Biden.
I am sure it will help pay the bills.
Even if it won’t make me Elon Musk.