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Congressional Response: Representative Heather Wilson (R-1st, NM) Responds to Your Notch Petition
The Social Security Amendments of 1977 (P.L. 95-216) substantially altered the way Social Security benefits are computed. Unfortunately this created the Social Security Notch, which you may be a part of. I believe it is important that seniors receive the Social Security benefits they were promised. The Notch Fairness Act of 2003, H.R. 97, would allow workers who attained age 65 after 1981 and before 1992 to choose either lump sum payments over four years totaling $5,000 or an improved benefit computation formula. I am a cosponsor of H.R. 97, as are 115 of my colleagues in the House of Representatives. Honestly, the biggest barrier to getting more Members of Congress on board is cost. As of December 2001, there were 9,223,690 recipients born between 1916 and 1927 who were receiving Social Security benefits. If all these recipients received a lump-sum of $5,000, the cost would be about $46 billion, not including the additional cost of providing lump-sums to survivors of workers born in those years. I’ll be honest with you. I support this legislation and I wish it would pass. But, given the current budget constraints and limited time left this year, I do not anticipate that Congress will act on Notch legislation this year. I remain optimistic that Congress will be able to address this issue in future years. If I were able to set the agenda for Congress, I would get it done. Unfortunately I am only one of 535 Members of Congress and each of us have our own ideas of what priorities should be. While I am not on the committee with jurisdiction over Social Security, I will communicate with those Members of Congress to let them know that this is a priority for seniors in my district. Again, thank you for signing the petition and letting me know that this is Sincerely, January 2005 | ||||||||
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Thank you for signing the TREA Senior Citizens League petition about the Social Security Notch issue.