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Your Social Security benefits are affected by the Windfall Elimination Provision. It affects people who have worked in jobs covered by Social Security and other jobs in which Social Security taxes were not taken out of your pay - like some government jobs, or for employers in other countries. The good news is that the WEP does not apply to survivors benefits, and because your wife worked in a private sector job that was covered by Social Security, she's not affected by the Government Pension Offset - a similar provision that reduces spouses and survivor benefits..Based on your current age, your full retirement age is 6That's the age when you can retire and receive the full, unreduced amount of your benefits. If you start benefits at age 64 your benefit will be reduced 20%. For example if you are eligible for ,200 at age 66 you would only receive 0 per month at age 64..This week, the White House held its day-long Conference on Aging and The Senior Citizens League announced its support for one new piece of legislation..By Representative Matt Cartwright.While a compromise was not reached, some consider the automatic budget cuts as a silver lining. "The good news, if there is no agreement, the nation is going to end up with what Republicans said, there will be a dollar spending reduction for every dollar increase in the debt ceiling" said Hensarling. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney echoed the same optimism: "It's important to remember, however, that because of the Budget Control Act, the 1.2 trillion dollars that the Super Committee was supposed to achieve in deficit reduction will happen regardless.".There were reports recently that Republicans in the House of Representatives are insisting that stemming the growth of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid costs is necessary. Bloomberg news reported on a House Budget Committee hearing about a new Congressional Budget Office report that projects trillion-dollar deficits for the next decade..The CBO option would change the taxation of Social Security to be more like distributions from defined benefit pension plans. Those distributions are fully taxable except for the portion that represents the recovery of "basis," or what an employee paid in - that is, his or her after-tax contributions to the plan. Once the recipient has recovered his or her entire "basis" all subsequent pension distributions are fully taxed..Legislation to help "Notch Victims" is Introduced.Today millions of older women are depending on insufficient Social Security benefits to get them through a retirement that can stretch up to 30 years. Low benefits mean people have to spend more of their retirement savings at a faster pace than anticipated.