Azerbaijan, Baku, July 12 / Trend /
Today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), representative of the largest community of immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) in the nation, introduced historic legislation designed to help restore payment of unpaid pensions to FSU immigrants now living in the U.S, the Congressman's official website said.
"For too long, thousands of FSU immigrants in my district and across the nation have been unfairly deprived of their hard-earned pensions," said Nadler.
"The principle is quite simple: if you work for decades and pay into a pension fund, you have the right to the payments that were promised you, no matter where you live. My legislation would ensure that the U.S. government plays a direct role in our longstanding efforts to obtain hard-earned pensions for Russian-speaking immigrants."
The Former Soviet Union State Pension Fairness Act of 2011 would direct the State Department and Social Security Administration to prioritize working with the FSU states to encourage policies that foment payment of pensions to individuals who earned pensions in those states but since immigrated to the United States.
There are tens of thousands of FSU immigrants in the U.S. who are currently not being paid pensions due them from FSU states. In 2006, at the request of community advocates from the FSU immigrant community in Brooklyn, Nadler began his efforts to restore pension payments to those immigrants, working with FSU governments and key State Department and Social Security Administration officials on the issue. Thus far, few of the 15 former Soviet republics reliably pay pensions due to retired workers living in the U.S.