Petition Asks White House to Eliminate GPO and WEP

A petition that was recently started on the White House’s We the People petition website is asking the government to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset provisions.

A petition that was recently started on the White House’s We the People petition website is asking the government to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset provisions.

The author of the petition says that they unfairly reduce the pensions of government employees:

The Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Provision Act (sic) unfairly penalize citizens who have paid into the Social Security System by reducing their benefits by approximately 50% because they are or will be, receiving a government pension. These provisions penalize our teachers, firefighters, police officers and others in fifteen states. Please repeal these unfair laws.

The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) are two provisions of the Social Security law that affect Social Security benefits to which CSRS retirees may be entitled. (See GPO, WEP and Your Future Social Security Benefits)

There has been activity in Congress in the past to repeal these provisions. FedSmith.com author John Grobe wrote about this several years ago and told readers at that time “Don’t hold your breath” with regards to a repeal of the provisions. His advice is probably applicable in this situation as well since petitions often are unlikely to generate legislative change.

This particular petition needs to get 100,000 signatures by March 23 in order to generate a response from the White House; note that a response is not the same thing as enacting the legislative changes the petition asks for.

For more on how the White House petitions work, see The White House is Taking a New Approach to How It Responds to Online Petitions.

About the Author

Ian Smith is one of the co-founders of FedSmith.com. He has over 20 years of combined experience in media and government services, having worked at two government contracting firms and an online news and web development company prior to his current role at FedSmith.