NEA applauds members of Congress for historic action to force a vote on bipartisan Social Security Fairness Act

WASHINGTON-U.S. Reps. Garret Graves (R-Louisiana) and Abigail Spanberger (D-Virginia) today announced that their discharge petition for the bipartisan Social Security Fairness Act has reached 218 signatures, the required number to force a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The following statement can be attributed to NEA President Becky Pringle:

"Educators dedicate their lives to public service, but when it's time to retire, far too many find that they have been stripped of Social Security and retirement benefits due to an unjust and morally wrong penalty. Not only do the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) exclusively punish educators, firefighters, and police officers, but these laws discourage people from pursuing public service careers. Today marks a major milestone brought forth by the tireless advocacy of educators and other public servants. On behalf of the 3 million members of the National Education Association, I urge Congress to bring up the bipartisan Social Security Fairness Act as soon as possible because this bill would help eliminate the unfair penalty for retirement benefits. Record levels of Americans are demanding a change to these archaic and punitive laws. The time to act is now because everyone should be able to retire with dignity and receive the benefits they earned through a lifetime of public service."

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The National Education Association is the nation's largest professional employee organization, representing more than 3 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators, students preparing to become teachers, healthcare workers, and public employees. Learn more at www.nea.org.