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Nancy Tynan Cederholm was only a few years into her career in public education when she heard about the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset. Back then, in the late 1990s, she wasn’t thinking about retirement and didn’t dwell on it.
But now, at 70, she’s ready. And thanks to the recent repeal of those laws, she can retire next year without losing any of the Social Security benefits she earned while working for about 25 years in a variety of private-sector jobs. She’s still working in Wareham as a clerical employee and Education Support Professional and plans to retire next year when her husband reaches his retirement age.
Like many MTA members, Tynan Cederholm tuned in to C-SPAN and watched President Biden on Jan. 5 as he signed the Social Security Fairness Act into law.
Suddenly, after years of worrying about their finances, or delaying retirement to save more money to compensate for what they expected to lose, educators who had paid into Social Security for years feel a weight lifted.
"It's not going to affect me," Tynan Cederholm said. "When I retire, I won't have the two-thirds taken off." She estimates that loss would have reduced her gross Social Security by about $9,000 annually.
John Selfridge, a teacher who works in Western Massachusetts, said he’d delayed his retirement to try to make up the anticipated shortfall. He worked in private companies for about half of his career before switching to teaching 20 years ago.
"I am still working at 68, because the WEP has been hanging over me, but now I’m planning to retire fairly comfortably at 69," he wrote, in an email.
A few years after she started in Wareham, as a member of the Wareham Education Association, Tynan Cederholm was warned by colleagues to leave within 10 years or her Social Security would be reduced.
She needed and liked the job and stayed put. WEP and GPO, signed into law during the Reagan administration, never made sense to her. "Why should we have to be reduced when the private sector doesn’t?" she said.
The Windfall Elimination Provision affected educators and other public service employees, including firefighters and police officers, who have earned both a public pension and Social Security benefits in private employment. The Government Pension Offset related to survivor benefits, for spouses whose partners had earned a public pension. It reduced Social Security survivor amounts by two-thirds of the amount of the pension.
Many educators were impacted by both – losing Social Security earnings through their own education careers and then survivor benefits from spouses who had died.
Like Tynan Cederholm, and many other educators, Thomas Roy didn’t know about WEP-GPO when he started his career in education, after switching over from private industry. He had worked in data conversion in a company with his brother and sister-in-law. He switched to teaching after about 15 years, and only a few years ago heard about WEP-GPO.
"If I had known about that, I’m not sure I would have gone into teaching," said Roy, who teaches computer science at Monument Mountain Regional High School.
A self-described "numbers guy," Roy created a spreadsheet of his and his wife’s likely retirement income. He started taking on more work, through stipends, to bolster his savings and compensate for what he expected to lose in retirement. As president of his local, the Berkshire Hills Education Association, he regularly started updating all members with information about the two laws, and the movement toward repeal.
Younger educators, Roy said, often didn’t connect with the concerns. But anyone approaching retirement followed closely. As district director for career and vocational technical education, Roy works with people who have all switched to public education from private careers, as carpenters, mechanics or horticulturalists. He promoted the calls to email U.S. Congress members, encouraging his members to send their own messages.
He estimated that the two provisions would have cost him and his wife between $25,000 and $35,000 annually.
Now, Roy and many other colleagues are relieved. "If it didn’t go through, I would be OK. My retired life will be OK. But there are so many people I’ve talked to, in this district, where an additional $400 a month takes them out of hardship."
Nationally, the repeal of WEP and GPO is anticipated to provide educators with an average of $360 more per month in Social Security, but the exact amount will depend on employment history. The Social Security Administration, which will recalculate the payments for those affected who are now retired, is posting updates on its website.
Educators and others affected by the two laws, who already are retired and collecting Social Security, are expected to receive a lump sum payment for the amounts they didn’t receive under WEPGPO going back to January 2024. People who haven’t retired will receive their full earnings under Social Security once they do so.
The Massachusetts congressional delegation fully supported the repeal. MTA members were among those who emailed and called their representatives. Selfridge sent letters and placed a phone call to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer’s office. "When I received the news that Biden had signed, I felt great relief, as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders," he wrote.
For a look back at the 40-year fight to overturn WEP-GPO, please visit massteacher.org/wepgpo.
