With less than six weeks before Election Day, former Vice President Joe Biden has responded to a list of questions submitted by the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) regarding his positions on federal employees’ pay and benefits.
NARFE sent identical questions to nominees Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and Donald J. Trump to obtain their views on issues that NARFE identified as key to the federal community.
The Trump campaign provided the following response: “The campaign is not participating in questionnaires this cycle.”
The Biden campaign responded on a range of issues affecting federal employees and retirees, including federal compensation, health care, retirement, Social Security, modernizing the government, and Postal reform.
Regarding federal employee compensation, Biden called for “consistent and regular pay increases necessary to ensure federal salaries remain competitive and that federal employees can support their families” and would oppose any efforts to reduce benefits under the Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) Program.
He supports the full repeal of the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and vows to “get rid of the benefit cuts for workers and surviving beneficiaries who happen to be covered by both Social Security and another pension”.
The Democratic Party nominee expressed support for increasing Social Security benefits using a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics research price index called the Consumer Price Index for Americans 62 years of age and older, or R-CPI-E (formerly known as the CPI-E).
NARFE has been a long-time advocate of adjusting retirement benefits using the R-CPI-E rather than the current Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W).
The former Vice President’s stances on key issues will be featured in the October issue of NARFE Magazine. Neither NARFE, nor its political action committee, endorses presidential candidates or contributes to presidential campaigns.
The questions and Biden’s unedited responses appear here: 2020 Presidential Candidate Questionnaire
