From the syllabus of the Supreme Court's opinion in Babcock v. Kijakazi:
This case concerns retirement benefits due under the Social Security Act for a retired “military technician (dual status)" ... Like all dual-status technicians, Babcock was required to maintain membership in the National Guard. ... Upon retirement, Babcock applied to the Social Security Administration for benefits. The agency granted Babcock benefits but applied a statutory “windfall elimination provision” and reduced the amount of benefits to reflect Babcock’s receipt of civil-service pension payments for his work as a technician. ...
Held: Civil-service pension payments based on employment as a dual-status military technician are not payments based on “service as a member of a uniformed service” ...
In other words, Babcock loses. Social Security will continue to apply the windfall offset to his Social Security benefits.
While this seems like an obscure question to me, it probably affects at least hundreds of people, maybe thousands. That's the way it is with Social Security. It's so big that even tiny changes affect significant numbers of people.
9 comments:
Windfall affects everyone who was under CSRS who has 40 quarters of SS coverage before, during, or after CSRS service, and affects the spousal benefits of anyone under CSRS who might want recourse to a SS covered spouse's benefits. Elizabeth Warren has proposed eliminating the windfall provision.
8-1 against with Justice Handmaid for the majority. Gorsuch the lone dissent, but his sentiments are beautiful. Shame about the rest of his jurisprudence.
I don't understand why Gorsuch's argument wasn't more persuasive to other Justices. But, I could see both sides of this. Sounds like clarification from Congress is needed if they want to give the full benefits in such cases.
One side says benefits should be reduced, other side says they should not, my side is that this is an absurd/weird rule that likely results in more administrative costs (training employees, hours spent applying, litigation costs, etc.) than is actually recouped by applying it. I would be curious though if there are actual numbers as to how much reduction is being applied based on the WEP as a whole.
Windfall offset came into being because some CSRS employees went and got little part time jobs and then collected RSI benefits. The calculations are skewed towards low earners, so they ended up collecting a disproportionate benefit.
The law caught other more deserving people though. I had waitress jobs before I was hired in as a CSRS employee. I worked hard those years and resent that my benefit was offset.
A few more years and a few more variants and it wont be an issue any longer.
SSI windfall offset, windfall elimination period, hey they all use the same word so must be the same right?
This case is about WEP not windfall offset.
At this point, how much is WEP/GPO costing Uncle Sam a year in training and administration costs, and how much is it saving the trust fund?
One of many SSA rules that could be removed to simplify the program and make it more fair, such as the Annual Earnings Test for early retirees, the hard SGA cutoff for disability recipients instead of the phased out benefit a la SSI, etc.
And that's before getting into the likely costly but completely indefensible policies like the 2 year Medicare waiting period for the disabled, or even the 5 month waiting period to get disability pay.
The waiting periods are based in law, not agency rules and would require legislation to change. ALS got the 5 month waiting period eliminated due to a law. The 24 month wait for Medicare is likewise a law, nor an agency policy.
WEP has all sorts of unintended consequences, and all sorts of manual actions. But I bet the juice is still worth the squeeze. From a fiscal perspective.
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