Public Employees “Escape” Social Security Inclusion For Now

Representatives of state and local retirement plans are resting easy now that the administration's Social Security proposals do not include any provision mandating that new state and local public employees be brought into the system. However, organizations such as National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems, National Association of State Retirement Administrators and National Council on Teacher Retirement remain vigilant because Congress may still seek to include such a provision in future legislation. We believe that including state and local hires would adversely affect them and would add to Social Security's woes rather than eliminate them. Even Social Security's own figures show that, at best, a proposal of this nature would only alleviate 10% of Social Security's projected deficit. Meanwhile, Colorado is attempting to head off any potential problems of mandatory Social Security coverage by state legislation that would exclude police officers and firefighters from such federal legislation. While we doubt the validity of such legislation, fortunately it looks like that issue will not have to be decided, for the moment.