Reader offers more details on Social Security

The following letter is a response to the letter “Retirees entitled to full Social Security benefits,” which appeared in the Friday, Sept. 2 edition.

I believe the author did not fully explain the reason for the windfall elimination provision. It reduces the Social Security benefit for the period when little or no FICA taxes were paid (excluding the Medicare portion); for the private sector, there probably was never such a period, hence no windfall elimination tax. Some time ago, before the Federal Employees Retirement System was implemented, federal employees and perhaps some other government employees did not pay into the Social Security system. The retirement system in effect at that time, the Civil Service Retirement System, also granted retirees a substantially higher retirement annuity than their FERS counterparts. Post 1986, even military personnel paid into the Social Security system, thus making them eligible to collect Social Security as well. The WEP was enacted in 1983 to prevent people (and others on the account, i.e. spouses/survivors) from collecting a windfall of Social Security benefits when receiving a pension based on work not covered by Social Security, for whom people paid little or no amounts into the system. I’ll leave it to readership to draw their own conclusion if this is a fair adjustment.