Cassidy Highlights $669 Million in Retroactive Payments for Beneficiaries of His Effort to Repeal WEP & GPO

METAIRIE -U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) hosted an event yesterday in Jefferson Parish highlighting the success of the bill he championed to fully repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). As a result, monthly Social Security retirement benefits have increased for Louisiana's retired teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other state and local government employees, and $669 million in retroactive payments have been made to compensate them for lost benefits.

"Our retired police officers, firefighters and teachers worked every day to keep us safe and educate our children," said Dr. Cassidy. "Because of my work, they are finally getting the Social Security benefits they deserve."

Cassidy was a long-time cosponsor of the Social Security Fairness Act in the Senate, being an original cosponsor since he became a Member of Congress in 2009. Cassidy successfully demanded a vote, getting the bill signed into law.

During the event, Cassidy was joined by Mr. Chad Major, the President of the Professional Firefighters Association of Louisiana, Mr. Gasper Migliore, Jr., a former Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office lieutenant, and Ms. Annette Accomando, a former teacher at Chalmette High Schol.

"We've been working on this for years to the point where people were kind of exhausted, thinking it would never happen. But when it did, I started getting calls of joy, calls from widows that were crying on the phone," said Mr. Major. "There's lots of people whose lives have been bettered, Senator, for the things that you and other Members of Congress did. On behalf of over 5,000 active members that I represent, not including the retired members, thank you from the bottom of our hearts."

"I can tell you what this did for me personally. It went from me waiting until I was 70 to start collecting [Social Security] because that's when it would maximize out, to being able to draw it this past October at age 65," said Mr. Migliore. "As police officers, sometimes we find ourselves in very dangerous situations, and we don't know what's on the other side of that door that's waiting for us. We need to have the faith and belief that the person standing behind us has our back. Senator Cassidy, I want to thank you for having not only my back, but firemen, teachers, and all public service employees' backs. Thank you for that."

"It's great to be able to be with my grandchildren, and that's the one thing that this has allowed us," said Ms. Accomando. "I was able to retire. I was able to just this January start getting my benefits, and my husband and I said, 'shall I wait until I'm 70? I'm 68 now, do I wait?' And we realized, 'no, we want to go see our grandchildren more. We want to be able to go out for our anniversaries and our birthdays. This is going to give us the opportunity to do those peace-of-mind things that everybody wishes to do."

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