Puerto Rico Teachers Association (AMPR) President Víctor Manuel Bonilla Sánchez is celebrating the historic signing of the Social Security Equity Act (HR 82) by President Joe Biden, which will benefit thousands of retired and active Puerto Rican teachers who will see their Social Security benefits increased due to the elimination of the Windfall Elimination and Government Pension Offset provisions.

“Today, justice is done for millions of workers throughout the American nation, including teachers from 15 states and Puerto Rico, who saw their retirements limited by punitive and extremely unnecessary provisions,” Bonilla Sánchez said Sunday in a written statement. “These unfair provisions further aggravated the economic situation of our retired educators, who have faced for several years the loss of important retirement benefits, and of active teachers who have suffered the freezing of their pensions. With the elimination of these provisions, between 30,000 and 35,000 teachers in Puerto Rico will benefit, including thousands of teachers who are still active in the public system and can access Social Security mainly based on previous jobs or second jobs.”

The union leader noted that the new law was promoted in Congress by numerous union organizations, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), to which the AMPR belongs. Among the efforts made by the AMPR since 2022 to promote the legislation, he highlighted meetings with staff from the office of the then-resident commissioner and current governor, Jenniffer González Colón, lobbying actions in the U.S. Congress along with the AFT, the mass sending of letters and emails to both representatives and U.S. senators, a support campaign by the families of teachers residing in the different states, and written correspondence with the former executive director of the Federal Puerto Rico Affairs Administration in Washington.

“The retirement conditions of Puerto Rican teachers have always been and will always be a priority for the AMPR,” Bonilla Sánchez said. “We greatly appreciate the support received from AFT President Randi Weingarten and the main sponsors in Congress of this new law, Representatives Abigail Spanberger and Garret Graves and Senators Sherrod Brown and Susan Collins, as well as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer D-NY. Likewise, we thank President Biden, who is making history before concluding his term by signing this important legislation for basic justice for millions of workers, including our teachers.”