Legislation that would replace Social Security's windfall elimination provision (WEP) with a formula that proponents say is more fair to individuals affected by the measure has been introduced in Congress again.

WEP slashes the Social Security retirement benefits that can be received by most individuals who collect a pension from a job that was not covered by the program, using a rather blunt formula that does not change until a person exceeds 20 years of work under Social Security. The Public Servant Retirement Protection Act - sponsored in the House (H.R. 2772) by Rep. Kevin Brady and in the Senate (S. 1647) by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison - would replace WEP with a formula that adjusts Social Security retirement benefits for public employees in a way that would reflect their level of participation in the program.

"This bill guarantees public servants keep the Social Security they earned while they paid into Social Security," said Brady, a member of the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee. "If you earn two pensions, you should receive two pensions just like everyone else."

Brady and Hutchison introduced the same legislation in the previous Congress but neither the House bill nor the Senate bill was formally considered by a committee. In the congressional session before that, though, in 2004, the Social Security Subcommittee held a hearing on Brady's bill at which a deputy commissioner with the Social Security Administration detailed the difficulties of recomputing benefits, estimating that it would take $190 million and 2,600 work years – that is, the equivalent of 2,600 people working full-time for one year – to sort out all of the numbers for all of the affected workers. The bill's price tag, which would reach about $8 billion, is also a likely hindrance to passage, especially with Congress now operating under pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules.