Teacher from Maine speaks to Senate Panel examining Social Security benefits

WASHINGTON – A 73-year-old Maine teacher told a panel of U.S. senators here Wednesday that the way Social Security calculates retirement benefits unfairly reduces the monthly incomes of teachers, police officers and other public service employees.

Julia Worcester, a substitute teacher from Columbia, Maine, testified before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which is examining the impact of two Social Security provisions on public employees and retirees.

The first provision, the windfall elimination provision, reduces Social Security benefits by as much as about $300 for retirees who paid into Social Security and who also receive a government pension, such as from the Maine State Retirement Fund, for work not covered under Social Security. It became law under the Social Security Amendments of 1983.

The second provision, the government pension offset, which was enacted in 1977, mandates that a Social Security spousal benefit is reduced or entirely eliminated if the surviving spouse is eligible for a pension from a local, state or federal government job that was not covered by Social Security. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the provision reduces benefits for more than 200,000 retired public servants by more than $3,600 a year.

Worcester told the Senate panel Wednesday that as a young woman she worked as a waitress and as a factory worker to support her family, and that at 49 she went to the University of Maine at Machias to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a teacher. She graduated in 1982 and soon began teaching full-time, but years later discovered that because of the two policies, the Social Security benefits she expected from her work before teaching and from her husband’s job would not be available in full to her family.

“That’s when I learned that the life I had carefully planned was not going to work out the way I thought – and I was nearly 60 years old,” Worcester said. “Too late to start over with a new plan.”

Sen. Susan M. Collins, who chairs the committee and who co-sponsored two Senate bills that either would eliminate both provisions or limit their application, said she often hears similar stories from her constituents in Maine.

“This is an issue that I have heard about at the grocery store, at my church, and even at my 30th high school class reunion from my many friends who have entered the teaching profession and who are committed to living and working in Maine,” Collins said.

“These public servants – or their spouses – have all paid taxes into the Social Security system,” Collins said. “They’ve earned it. Yet, because of these two provisions, they are unable to collect all of the Social Security benefits to which they otherwise would be entitled.”

Collins said she was especially worried that the two policies would hurt teacher recruitment efforts, especially in Maine, which Collins said is facing a teacher shortage.

But Jo Anne B. Barnhart, commissioner of the Social Security Administration, told the committee that eliminating the provisions would be expensive and would advance by one year, from 2042 to 2041, the projected date that the Social Security entitlement fund would run out of money.