Social Security Administration  in mid-October 2009 released a bulletin entitled "The Disappearing Defined Benefit Pension and Its Potential Impact on the Retirement Incomes of Baby Boomers." The percentage of workers covered by a traditional annuity, often based on years of service and final salary, has been steadily declining over the past 25 years.

Rep. Rick Larsen on the windfall tax.  Not quite as positive as Sen. Cantwell's response but at least we are keepin the issue on the burner.

Barry Newson contacted Senator Cantwell's office about the Windfall Tax. She replied and we are providing a copy of that reply here.  It seems to me that everybody should write to her just to let her know that we expect this bill to get out of committee and passed.  It has been in committee for several years now and gets renewed every year but never seems to get out of committee.  I don't know if it is intended to get out of committee or if the bill is just there to appease us. 

The 5.8 percent cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) – the largest in 26 years – is an important reminder that keeping pace with inflation is one of the attributes that makes Social Security benefits such a unique source of income. (The other is that the payments continue for life.)

The 2008 Democratic National Platform includes language calling for the elimination of Social Security offsets. NEA President Reg Weaver and Pennsylvania State Education Association President Jim Testerman served on the platform committee and, with the help of National Education Association staff, were able to push the committee to include in the platform language reading,

In 1983 Congress was motivated to create the WEP to remove any possible inequalities of Social Security benefits of employees not paying into Social Security but paying into a government retirement plan. These employees would earn their 40 credits outside of federal service and subsequently earn Social Security benefits that are as relatively high as those benefits earned by employees who paid into Social Security their entire working careers. Our Congress saw this as an “inequality” problem.  So they reduced the amount of the benefit that such workes would receive.  (Many thanks to Ray Sanderson for finding and publishing this information.)

The Social Security Fairness Act now boasts a record 352 bipartisan cosponsors in the House and 37 cosponsors in the Senate. In November, 2007, the Senate Finance Committee, Subcommittee on Social Security, held a hearing on the offsets, followed in February 2008 by a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee. These hearings, and the high number of cosponsors, reflect the hard work of activists across the country in raising the profile of this issue and moving it farther in this current Congress than ever before.