Page:BNSF Railway Company v. Michael D. Loos.pdf/8

Rh with the statutory text. The RRTA defines “compensation” as “remuneration paid to an individual for services rendered as an employee.” 26 U. S. C. §3231(e)(1). This definition, as just noted, is materially indistinguishable from the FICA’s definition of “wages” to include “remuneration” for “any service, of whatever nature, performed… by an employee.” §3121.

Given the textual similarity between the definitions of “compensation” for railroad retirement purposes and “wages” for Social Security purposes, our decisions on the meaning of “wages” in Social Security Bd. v. Nierotko, 327 U. S. 358 (1946), and United States v. Quality Stores, Inc., 572 U. S. 141 (2014), inform our comprehension of the RRTA term “compensation.” In Nierotko, the National Labor Relations Board found that an employee had been “wrongfully discharged for union activity” and awarded him backpay. 327 U. S., at 359. The Social Security Board refused to credit the backpay award in calculating the employee’s benefits. Id., at 365–366. In the Board’s view, “wages” covered only pay for active service. Ibid. We disagreed. Emphasizing that the phrase “any service… performed” denotes “breadth of coverage,” we held that “wages” means remuneration for “the entire employer-employee relationship”; in other words, “wages” embraced pay for active service plus pay received for periods of absence from active service. Id., at 366. Backpay, we