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| Yes | 93% | 28 votes | Total: 30 votes | |
| No | 7% | 2 votes |
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Add to FavoritesPublic employees-teachers, police, firefighters-in fifteen states have their paltry retirement benefits reduced further by their inability to collect any retirement benefit they have paid for through Social Security. I live in such a state; I teach here; why was I forced to throw away my Social Security benefits? It dates back to the Regan administration's ban on "double dipping." When government decided that persons who have paid into public pension plans as well as Social Security should not be entitled to collect on both, the arguments made sense. Why should public employees receive two public pensions-Social Security and any public pension fund benefits they had earned? A young twenty-something working for the Veterans Administration, I was convinced: axing double dipping was the right choice. Since then, I have changed my view.
After working for twenty years in jobs from which I paid into Social Security, and being assured of its retirement benefit, I changed careers and headed for the classroom. If you have heard of the "teacher shortage," among other ills plaguing public schools, you are likely aware that career changers are being wooed into teaching. It's true: we are, and for the most part we love it; however, a small oversight is disclosure has droves of teachers signing up only to discover later that the very fact of their public employment (never mind the salary reduction) makes them now ineligible to collect any of the Social Security benefits they had previously "earned."
Ten years in, I still receive those annual or bi-annual notices from Social Security telling me how much I've paid into the system and the benefit to which I'll be entitled when I reach retirement age. But it's untrue. Because I am a teacher in Massachusetts-one of the fifteen states wherein public employees (police, firefighters, teachers) are not covered by Social Security, but have a state retirement pension in the offing-I have given away all that I put into the Social Security system. Sure, our government needs the money, think of how much the war in Iraq is costing us, giving up my Social Security quarters is the least I can do. Puh-lease, consider that when my Mass. Teachers Retirement benefit puts me in poverty, I'll have to go on the dole (or work forever). All right, if I just stay in the classroom until I'm 67, I'll be entitled to a very nice pension ... but I'm not sure I'll last that long. And, I know for sure that it is wrong to deny me my Social Security benefit (for which I paid, remember) just because I chose to teach.
Now, though, there's a bill in Congress to repeal the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision. House bill 82 (H.R. 82) and Senate bill 206 (S. 206). For this I am gratified. Please look around you at the teachers, police, and firefighters in your lives. For them, for what is right, please voice your concerns about this issue. I thank you and applaud any efforts you make to that end.
Learn more about this author, Cynthia Winfield.
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No
'Earned' is a phrase that means actually merited by expended effort. With that in mind I have seen no, not one, City, County, State or Federal Employee actually earn their pay. In these I only exclude Police, Fire and EMT workers.
Not only do civil employees get paid exorbitantly but they get paid overtime as they do not get 8 hours of work accomplished in a day! Time and a half is paid to civil employees and that is the reward they get for dodging the jobs at hand.
I'll give you a true story then you be the judge.
A lady worked for the State Of California. Two years before she was to retire the State offered her a substantial raise (to the $90,000.00 range) to relocate some 150 miles from home. She accepted and went to work at the new location. Her pay now exceeded $100,000.00. Two years passed and she submitted her retirement papers. Her supervisor asked her to wait another 3 months before retiring and her pay would be increased by another 10 percent as there was a 'special project' to be accomplished. Again she acceded, delayed her retirement and accepted the raise. But, the very next day she put in for vacation of 90 days as she had accrued that time. Well, she went on vacation then retired not working on the supposed 'special project' for a single day! She retired at 90 percent of her salary! Think she 'earned it.'
City employees of Santa Ana, California demanded a pension equal to 100 percent of their pay. Think about it! Just don't come to work, get paid and they can't fire you!
Until the civil employees of this nation get to working, actually working, they should get no more than the private sector gets in Social Security...That's that!
Learn more about this author, Lee S. Gliddon Jr..
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