July 8, 1987
To the Congress of the United States:
Pursuant to Section 233(e)(1) of the Social Security Act, as amended by the Social Security Amendments of 1977 (P.L. 95 - 216, 42 U.S.C. 433(e)(1)), I transmit herewith the Supplementary Agreement between the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) on Social Security, signed at Washington on October 2, 1986. The Supplementary Agreement consists of two separate instruments, one amending the basic social security agreement and the other amending its related administrative agreement.
The U.S.-FRG social security agreement is similar in objective to the social security agreements in force with Belgium, Canada, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Such bilateral agreements, generally known as totalization agreements, provide for limited coordination between the United States and foreign social security systems to overcome the problems of gaps in protection and of dual coverage and taxation for workers who move from one country to the other. The present Supplementary Agreement would amend the original agreement with the Federal Republic of Germany and its related administrative agreement to update and simplify several of their provisions to take account of changes in U.S. and German law and to simplify the method of computing U.S. benefit amounts.
I also transmit for the information of the Congress a comprehensive report prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services, which explains the provisions of the Supplementary Agreement and the effect on Social Security financing as required by the same provision of the Social Security Act.
The Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services join with me in commending the U.S.-FRG Supplementary Social Security agreement and related documents.
Ronald Reagan
The White House,
July 8, 1987.