Arrington Urges Passage of His Legislation to Ensure Teachers, Police, and Firefighters Receive What They Contribute to Social Security

Washington, D.C. - Today, House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (TX-19) spoke on the House floor to urge his colleagues to pass his legislation - the Equal Treatment of Public Servants Act (H.R. 5342) - to ensure public servants subject to the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) receive their fair share of Social Security benefits in retirement. For decades, millions of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public servants have lost benefits they worked hard to earn because of an outdated, overly complex, and unfair formula used by the Social Security Administration. Rep. Arrington's Equal Treatment of Public Servants Act updates Social Security's formula in order to fully compensate our teachers, firefighters, and police officers for the time they worked in the private sector and the taxes they paid into the system.

"I'm asking my colleagues to do the right thing, address this inequity with WEP and our public servants, but do it the right way so that we don't compromise the integrity and fiscal responsibility of managing the trust funds," said Chairman Arrington. "This is a complex issue, but what's not complicated is people who have been shortchanged need to get the money that they rightfully are owed by their government - my bill will do it in a responsible way."

Background:

• The WEP was designed by Congress in 1983 to calculate benefits for workers with both Social Security-covered earnings and earnings not subject to Social Security taxes. However, the current method does not accurately account for the entire length of a worker's work history.

• The Equal Treatment of Public Servants Act addresses these shortcomings by replacing the WEP with a new formula that reflects an individual's actual work history; creating a transition period for current workers; and providing relief to retirees subject to WEP.

• Since coming to Congress, Rep. Arrington has been an original cosponsor of The Equal Treatment of Public Servants Act when it was introduced by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) in the 116^th and 117^th Congresses.

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