Senate approves bill to expand Social Security to millions of Americans
Nearly 3 million Americans will receive full Social Security benefits under legislation passed in the waning hours of the current Congress and now headed to President Biden, who is expected to sign into law.
Senators voted 76-20 for the Social Security Fairness Act, which would eliminate two federal policies that prevent nearly 3 million people, including police officers, firefighters, postal workers, teachers and others with a public pension, from collecting their full Social Security benefits. The legislation has been decades in the making, as the Senate held its first hearings into the policies in 2003.
"The Senate finally corrects a 50-year mistake," proclaimed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, after senators approved the legislation at 12:15 a.m. Saturday.
Democrats uniformly voted for the measure, while Republicans in the Senate were split, with 20 voting to pass it and 20 voting against it. Four senators did not vote, including California's Adam Schiff, a Democrat; Joe Manchin, an independent from West Virginia; and two Republicans — Marco Rubio of Florida and Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance of Ohio.
Congressional passage came down to the wire. After garnering bipartisan approval in the U.S. House in November, Senate approval came at about 12:15 a.m. on Saturday, just ahead of a continuing resolution to keep the government from shutting down. The votes marked the final ones cast by senators in the 118th Congress before the next Congress is sworn in on January 3.
"Social Security is a bedrock of our middle class. You pay into it for 40 quarters, you earned it, it should be there when you retire," Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who lost his seat in the November election, told the chamber Wednesday ahead of one of multiple votes to advance the bill. "All these workers are asking for is for what they earned."
Senators rejected four amendments and a budgetary point of order that would have derailed the measure, given the small window of time left to pass it.
Republicans who spoke against the bill largely objected to its cost, noting that the measure would accelerate the Social Security trust fund's projected insolvency by about six months, now estimated to be roughly a decade away. Senate supporters of the bill, including Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy, argued that while Social Security's funding shortfall needs to be addressed, that shouldn't be done at the expense of retirees with public pensions.
When will the Social Security Fairness Act go into effect
Once signed into law, the legislation's effective date involves Social Security payments for months after December 2023, according to the text of the bill. Still, calculating what folks are due, not to mention retroactive payments, may not be simple or quick.
The new law would come at a time when the Social Security Administration is operating with its lowest staffing level in more than 50 years, or since 1972, with a hiring freeze recently put in place, a spokesperson noted. Congress rejected the White House budget office's request to increase its funding, first in September and again last week, leaving it flat.
The bill's passage is "a monumental victory for millions of public service workers who have been denied the full benefits they've rightfully earned," said Shannon Benton, executive director for the Senior Citizens League, which advocates for retirees and which has long pushed for the expansion of Social Security benefits. "This legislation finally restores fairness to the system and ensures the hard work of teachers, first responders and countless public employees is truly recognized."
What is the Social Security Fairness Act?
The Social Security Fairness Act would repeal two federal policies — the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO) — that reduce Social Security payments to nearly 3 million retirees.
That includes those who also collect pensions from state and federal jobs that aren't covered by Social Security, including teachers, police officers and U.S. postal workers. The bill would also end a second provision that reduces Social Security benefits for those workers' surviving spouses and family members. The WEP impacts about 2 million Social Security beneficiaries and the GPO nearly 800,000 retirees.
The measure, which passed the House in November, had 62 cosponsors when it was introduced in the Senate last year. Yet the bill's bipartisan support eroded in recent days, with some Republican lawmakers voicing doubts due to its cost. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the proposed legislation would add a projected $195 billion to federal deficits over a decade.
Vice President-elect JD Vance of Ohio was among the 24 Republican senators to join 49 Democrats to advance the measure in an initial procedural vote that took place Wednesday.
Without Senate approval, the bill's fate would have ended with the current session of Congress and would have needed to be re-introduced in the next Congress.
