Bills targeting Social Security offsets have been offered since they first were created in the 1980s. Image: larry1235/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffBills have been reintroduced in the House on the long-running issue of calculating COLAs for federal retirees and two Social Security offsets applying to most of those who are retired, or will retire, under the CSRS system.
The former bill, HR-716, would base the COLA calculation on the CPI-E, an index calculated by the Labor Department designed to better reflect the impact of retirees’ differences in spending patterns. For example, they tend to spend more than the general population for health care, which in many years experiences higher cost growth than the overall measure currently used, the general CPI-W.
Studies of the potential impact of similar prior proposals have said that the CPI-E produces figures averaging about a quarter of a percentage point above those of the CPI-W, although there is variation year to year.
Also reintroduced was HR-82, to repeal the windfall elimination provision and the government pension offset, which apply only under the CSRS system—which now applies to only several percent of current federal employees but to the majority of current retirees.
The former reduces a Social Security benefit the person earned through other employment—typically before or after a federal career but in some cases during a career through work on the side—if the person had less than 30 years of earnings above a designated level that this year is $29,700. The maximum reduction works out to above $500 a month and is not as severe for those with between 20 and 30 years of such earnings.
The latter reduces Social Security spousal or survivor benefits by $2 for each $3 the beneficiary receives in an annuity from a retirement system that does not include Social Security. In many cases, the effect of the GPO is to eliminate a spousal or survivor Social Security benefit through a spouse’s Social Security-covered employment.
Bills targeting those two provisions have been offered since they first were created as part of the Social Security changes of the 1980s. Those proposals have included a mix of bids to repeal them outright—which the latest bill would do effective in calendar year 2024—or to soften the reductions. The House Ways and Means Committee last year advanced a bill of the latter type but it never reached a floor vote.
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