How much have you lost due to the Government Pension Offset and/or the Windfall Elimination Provision? Some have paid as much as $90,000 in Social Security taxes and yet have their entire retirement benefit lost due to the GPO. In my case, I lose $24,000/annually due to the GPO. Would you “invest” $90,000 for your future retirement if you knew that the return would be nothing?
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For most of us, it’s a double rip-off. Our state had a CONTRACTUAL obligation to pay its retired pensioners a 3.5% raise each year. It was very clearly and specifically written in the contract that once a person retired, they could never change that or any other pension obligation.
Guess what? They have now reneged on that obligation and now pay us 0% to 2%. That is on top of also taking away most or all of our Social Security benefits under the guise of GPO/WEP.
To make matters more irritating, a certain branch of politicians is holding the entire country hostage under the ruse of a “no new taxes” pledge. How is withholding our pension and Social Security funds any different than a tax hike?
The only answer I can figure is that we aren’t millionaires, so we don’t count.