For decades, many thought repealing federal Social Securities penalties was a lost cause—yet in late 2024 both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate passed WEP/GPO repeal, and President Biden signed it into law on January 5.
Doing away with the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset is a huge win for teachers and other public servants. In episode 50 of CEA’s podcast, CEA President Kate Dias and Vice President Joslyn DeLancey talk with Bette Marafino, president of the Connecticut Alliance for Retired Americans, and Mary-Beth Lang, vice-president of CEA-Retired, about celebrating the win, how we got here, and what’s next.
“We’ve really learned the importance of having confidence in our cause and insistence, collaboration, and seizing the day,” Dias says. “We had a united cause around federal provisions that we all knew were just fundamentally wrong and unjust, and then we worked together to figure out how we could move this through to the finish line.”
“Everyone got out of their own silos and it became not just a teacher issue, and that’s where it really grew,” Lang says.
Marafino says, “All along we said, ‘We’re not going to give up, we’re going to stay the course.'”
