News
Retiring on Next to Nothing

NEA campaigns for repeal of two Social Security rules that reduce retired educators to poverty.

Back in the late 1980s, a colleague warned Maine teacher Junita Drisko that she'd "be sorry" if she didn't pay attention to two provisions in the Social Security law that could reduce her retirement income.

"I was too busy to listen," recalls Drisko, who teaches English and journalism at Bangor High School. "I was very preoccupied with creating lesson plans and correcting papers."

Fast forward to the 2001 NEA Representative Assembly, where Drisko found herself addressing 9,000 fellow delegates about these same two provisions, the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision.

Drisko's passionate speech prompted the delegates to pass a new business item mandating that NEA "develop and financially support a grassroots coalition" to educate state and local affiliates on the need to "work toward the elimination of the GPO and WEP."

That campaign, now underway, is focused on the passage of companion bills S. 1523 and H.R. 2638, which would amend the Social Security Act to repeal the GPO and WEP.

Because of these two provisions, Drisko told RA delegates, educators and other public employees in 15 states who do not pay into the Social Security system are "often reduced to living in poverty during their retirement years."

To drive that point home, Drisko related the true story of a Maine teacher, "Julia," who fell victim to the Windfall Elimination Provision. 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.

"Julia worked in restaurants for 20 years before she went back to school to become a teacher at the age of 53. She taught for 15 years," Drisko told the delegates. "The Windfall Elimination Provision reduced her $525 Social Security monthly benefit to $152. Medicare takes $45."

Julia, who gets a small Maine state pension, is left with just $431 after other essential deductions. "Her husband receives $700 a month as a Social Security benefit," Drisko noted. "But if he predeceases Julia, the Government Pension Offset will prevent her from receiving any survivor benefits."

That's because the GPO reduces a public employee's Social Security spousal or survivor benefits by an amount equal to two-thirds of his or her public pension.

The GPO and WEP aren't simple to explain. They were adopted by Congress in the 1980s as a snap solution to problems such as pension "double dipping" abuses and budget deficits.

But these provisions are easier to grasp when one understands that the wrong people, often low-income women like Julia, are hurt by them.

And for NEA members, the hurt is massive. The GPO and WEP affect at least one-third of America's education workforce, concentrated in 15 "non-Social Security" states, literally from Maine to Alaska. The list also includes highly populated states like California, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Texas.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the GPO alone reduces benefits for some 300,000 individuals by more than $3,600 a year.

Junita Drisko, who's treasurer/membership coordinator of the Bangor Education Association, points out that "All kinds of educators out there have no idea of the impact the GPO and WEP have on their retirement."

That's less the case in Maine, where Sue Shaw, a physical education/health teacher from Ellsworth High School, travels the state to make presentations on the dangers of the GPO and WEP.

"I'm telling people that they may not get the Social Security benefits they planned on," says Shaw. "If you work in a non-Social Security state and get a letter from Social Security saying you have your 'quarters' and will get certain projected benefits when you retire, it does not include the words, 'if you are not on a public pension.'"

That comes as a shock to the many Maine teachers and ESPs who supplement their modest salaries by working second jobs or owning small businesses, and hope to boost their even more modest state pension by paying into the Social Security system.

Some Mainers react to the bad news about GPO/WEP by delaying retirement into their 70s. Others, sadly, question their career choice after years of teaching. Yet others think twice about entering teaching later in life from other careers, at a time of a teacher shortage.

While affected teachers, ESP, and other public employees--from firefighters to social workers--can't sue the federal government over the GPO and WEP, they can certainly change the law if they get together and put their minds to it.

Junita Drisko's RA new business item is helping jump start that process. Nationwide, NEA is now pressing for total repeal of the GPO and WEP through media outreach, coalition building, grassroots lobbying, and regional training sessions for local leaders and activists.

At a recent training session in Maine, NEA chief lobbyist Diane Shust urged activists to call members of Congress in support of GPO/WEP repeal bills S. 1523 and H.R. 2638, contact President Bush, write to editors, and build coalitions with other unions and retired groups.

An invaluable partner in the drive for total repeal of GPO and WEP will be the growing membership of NEA-Retired.

"We've been working heavily for more than five years to bring this issue to the forefront of the national legislative agenda," says NEA-Retired President Jim Sproul. "Many of our 187,000 members are either directly affected by the GPO or WEP or indirectly affected through a spouse. And don't forget, in this highly mobile society, educators never know when they'll move to a non-Social Security state and be hit by these provisions."

Sproul urges all NEA members, active and retired alike, to bring the GPO/WEP issue to their members of Congress. "Tell stories about how these provisions affect people and how they penalize people for public service," he advises, "and urge your senators and representatives to sign on as co-sponsors of S. 1523 and H.R. 2638."

For more about Social Security's GPO and WEP provisions, go to www.nea.org/lac/socsec.

Basics for Beginners
How To Take On The Pension Offset

If you want to work for total repeal of the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision, here's some advice from two Maine NEA activists:

• Tell your friends, family, and colleagues about how the GPO and WEP help impoverish public employees. And don't forget to clue in other public workers. "One legislator, a retired state transportation department employee, told me, 'I'm working on getting my Social Security quarters,'" recalls physical education/health teacher Sue Shaw. "I told him, 'I've got bad news for you.' We need to educate more people like him."

• If you've been hurt by the Government Pension Offset or Windfall Elimination Provision, tell your story to the press and members of Congress. English teacher Junita Drisko teaches journalism, so she knows that "so many stories bring an issue to life." She and other Maine activists have learned that "we're not going to win repeal of these provisions by getting too academic and difficult to understand."

Breaking News
Congress Reauthorizes ESEA

At press time in December, Congress passed a bill amending and reauthorizing the largest single federal education statute, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Authorizing funding of $26.5 billion for Fiscal Year 2002 alone, this 1,184-page law will greatly impact the lives of educators over the life of its term, from FY 2002 to FY 2007.

Before the ESEA bill went to President Bush for his signature, NEA President Bob Chase noted that it "sets out noble goals to raise student achievement and raise accountability, but fails to deliver the support required to help children achieve required standards."

NEA will not oppose the bill, he said, "but we cannot in good conscience support it."

Chase stressed that the new ESEA fails to fulfill a 26-year-old federal promise to pay 40 percent of the cost of special education.

Moreover, NEA is now warning that the bill imposes six years of requirements on schools and cash-strapped state governments with no guarantee of resources after an initial $3.5 billion (20 percent) funding increase in FY 2002.

"While there was a huge federal surplus at the beginning of the fiscal year," notes NEA lobbyist Joel Packer, "we're now back to a budget deficit because of tax cuts, the economic downturn, and the war on terrorism."

In the plus column, however, NEA and its allies did succeed in keeping some damaging proposals out of ESEA, including private tuition vouchers, huge statewide block grants, mandatory testing of current teachers, and the weakening of civil rights protections.

NEA also helped improve ESEA's accountability provisions, making them less punitive, more flexible, and more focused on the achievement of all students.

Among ESEA's many features:

• A 12-year goal to make every student "proficient" in state reading and math tests. By the 2005-06 school year, every state must administer annual reading and math tests of its own design in grades 3-8, and once between grades 9-12. The tests must be aligned to state standards and must include multiple measures of achievement.

  State achievement tests must measure both the performance of a whole school and that of disadvantaged "subgroups," to ensure that no single group of students is allowed to consistently underperform.

  A school that displays a lack of "adequate yearly progress" will be placed on a long-term improvement schedule with progressively stronger corrective measures, culminating in school "reconstitution" in the seventh year.

• Stronger teacher quality provisions. By the end of the 2005-6 school year, all public school teachers must be both licensed and certified and must demonstrate competency in the subjects they teach. ESEA does, however, contain an explicit ban on any type of federal teacher certification or test.

  To further the quality goal, ESEA expands and improves programs for teacher recruitment, retention, mentoring, and training.

• Stronger civil rights protections. ESEA bans the federal funding of any education provider that practices bias--based on anything from disability to religion.

(For more on ESEA: www.nea.org/lac.)