Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

Thanks for the updates, great news, this will also increase our SS by $'000s a year each

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

Actually that "old biddy" is a friend of one of our Texas teacher friends and has been very big in sorting this out! But yes, she can talk..

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

Well then....my boss is in for a surprise on his return to work tomorrow. I think my retirement can start hmmm....right now 😀

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

:thumbup:


That was earned money, not a "windfall" and was never the right way to tax.

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

I've just run my retirement projection WITHOUT WEP...and it makes a pretty significant difference. An income increase of almost $1,000 per month for my household...once we hit 67...and if other laws on both sides of the Atlantic remain unchanged.
Thank you to the group (especially the prodigiously knowledgeable Glasgow Girl) for explaining the complexities.
This is the first bill of any kind I've actually followed through the lobbying-house-senate-presidential process. I might be naive, but I must say: I'm shocked at the lack of informed debate, in-depth reporting and policy scrutiny that was afforded this bill (with a cost projected at nearly $200B). This one goes in our favor for once, but I shudder to think how many other $200B spends or cuts are being pushed through with just as little thought (other than their political expediency, of course).
So I'm putting this one firmly in the WIN column, but I fully expect an equally poorly debated/reported bill will soon be proposed to "fix the Social Security funding crisis": increasing the retirement age, lowing payouts, means testing...raising the SS tax contribution limit (hmmm, probably not in the next 4 years).

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

WEP is gone but it was noticeable that for months none of the pro-bill lobbyists once brought up the sticky subject of the benefits to foreign pensioners for fear of derailing it, and I honestly doubt any of the lazy turds that voted for it bothered to find out why WEP even existed in the first place. It was all framed as helping out our poor old lady teachers and brave firefighters who had been so badly mistreated over the last 40 years, none of which was true. Wait until the supposed DOGE finds out a substantial amount of that money went to undeserving immigrants. Now that the bill is past, I would not be surprised in the slightest if these disingenuous arseholes think up a whole new version of WEP just for us, and I wouldn't expect to be fairly calculated at all.

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

Any idea what those numbers might be? I would think that the number would be very small in comparison to the rest, particularly if you are only taking non-citizens living overseas who receive both SS and foreign pensions (I am a USC, and still pay FICA and Medicare payroll taxes). The total cost of the repeal is around 20 billion $/year, and SS pays out 1.5 trillion $/year.

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

Exactly!
I can appreciate why the bill's supporters didn't mention our category of beneficiaries, but where were the press? Isn't the press supposed to dig into these complex issues and inform the public?

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

According to investopedia around 760,000 people overseas receive SS benefits, out of a total of 70,600,000 which is 1% of all recipients. I don't see a breakdown of how many of those 760,000 are USCs, and who therefore pay US taxes and are eligible to vote. IF the extra amount they receive is exactly in line with the GPO and WEP increased cost of $20B/year then the extra drain on SS by overseas recipients would be $200M/year. From the SS facts link below you can see that the SSA paid out $1,240,000,000,000 in 2023 ($1.24T) so the effect on payments by overseas WEP repeal is absolutely trivial. (0.016% ?)

https://www.investopedia.com/collect...nts%20overseas.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/char...t_facts23.html

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

Perhaps I'm thinking about this all wrong but SSA would have been paying out this benefit to legal immigrants who are eligible to collect SS benefits. Hubby had to take a cut in his SS benefits when he retired at age 70 due to his having a pension from the military in Canada for 36 years of service. Where is the justification for his cut in SSA benefits. He worked / served for those 36 years. He paid into his old age benefit. He is entitled to receive them in full as they are taxed in Canada regardless of his age and he does. He then worked 10 years in the US and paid FICA for those 10 yeas so why should his SS benefit be reduced because he receives a pension from a foreign country that he earned. He didn't sit on his arse are demand to be supported by the government for doing nothing. Why should he and those of his ilk be entitled to receive full benefits from what country they they earned the benefit in.

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

I don't think the numbers you quote are applicable for this calculus, but I'm sure you're correct that the impact on US SS insolvency from first generation immigrants benefiting from the WEP repeal is small compared to US government pensioned workers.

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

You're right, it's unfair to penalize your hubby...but it's also "progressive". Anyway, no more so, WEP is dead and good riddance to it.

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

Yes, you really need to be able to dig deep into the figures which I simply can't do. I don't even know how much money is going to spouses who can now claim on their partner's record, because GPO is gone, compared to the extra money that WEP'ed folks receive (max of about $6k/year). How many GPO (ie ex State employees like teachers) folks live overseas compared to WEP affected folks?

I have a friend in the USA who pretty well paid the maximum into SS for 35 years and will be getting over $40k/year when he files at age 67 this year but his wife was a teacher and has been entitled to nothing on his account as she is covered by GPO. She will now be able to claim 50% of his SS since he is at FRA. That is over $20k/year while he is alive and if he dies before her then instead of receiving nothing she will receive 100% of his SS. That sort of money is much higher than I and my wife will receive when our WEP reductions are removed.

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

The problem is the WEP provision was poorly worded and makes you feel like you are being penalised for earnings you earned fairly abroad. But the actual rationale is more about not giving an unfair advantage in regards to the percentages applied in the SSA formula as others have explained already. If his full employment was earned in the US those last 10 years would have contributed 32% or even 15% to the final SS amount. But because the 36 years in Canada is not looked at he gets to take advantage of the 90% amount which was meant to help lower income earners. But I don't agree with it and I am glad it is going.

Re: WTH... WEP? Really?
 

SS pays out a percentage of your average US wages over 35 years on which you paid FICA. To give people who were on low wages all their lives a more useful amount, the first $1174 of the average is paid at 90%. The rest is paid at 32%, then over $7078 at 15% (up to a maximum of $4555) . The higher your average wage, the lower the percentage of it you get back in SS and that's how it's meant to work. Your husband paid FICA for 10 years in the US, but that amount gets averaged over 35 years, and makes it look like he's a very low income worker. (If he earned $3500 a month on average, it seems like his average was only $1000.) So the SS formula would have replaced a large amount or all of that at 90%. What WEP does is reduce that amount to a fairer approximate 40% rate overall, so he did not lose benefits that he was really entitled to. He wasn't such a low income worker as the SS formula worked out, and already had a full pension from his work on which he paid zero FICA tax to the US. He was never entitled to that 90% return.