Bad news for Social Security: this is the deadline for approving the 2025 expansion of benefits to millions of Americans
Time is running out for the Senate to pass legislation that would eliminate two provisions that reduce Social Security benefits for certain retirees.
The 118th Congress will adjourn for the last time at the end of this year. When it does, any bills that have not been passed will have to be reintroduced in the next Congress and go through the whole procedural process again.
There are concerns that this fate could befall the Social Security Fairness Act if it doesn’t come up for a vote in the Senate. It passed the House of Representatives with broad bipartisan support garnering 327 votes in favor of the legislation to 75 against it.
The bill, which would eliminate two provisions that reduce benefits for nearly 3 million American retirees, their spouses and survivors. Many of them teachers, firefighters, police officers, postal workers and other government workers.
While there are just over six weeks until December 31, technically the final day of the 118th Congress, the upper chamber is currently scheduled to adjourn on the 20th. The good news is that 62 senators have signed on to the bill, enough to defeat a filibuster, but it needs to be brought up for a vote first.
What is the Social Security Fairness Act and who would it affect?
The Social Security Fairness Act of 2023, also known as H.R. 82, would eliminate the government pension offset (GPO) and the windfall elimination provision (WEP). These provisions reduce the amount that reitrees, or their surviving spouses and family members can receive from Social Security affecting roughly 800,000 and 2 million, respectively, beneficiaries.
WEP adjusts the amount a Social Security benefit for people who have less than 30 years of significant earnings from employment covered by Social Security and who also receive a “non-covered pension.” These are pensions that are “paid by an employer that does not withhold Social Security taxes from your salary, typically, state and local governments or non-U.S. employers.”
GPO on the other hand “reduces the spousal or widow(er) benefit by two-thirds of the monthly non-covered pension,” says the Social Security Administration. Of the 5.84 million spousal or widow(er) beneficiaries in 2022, the GPO applied to roughly 12.6% of them. Approximately 70% of those affected had their entire benefit offset by the GPO.
The bill would add around $196 billion to the federal deficit over a decade according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). It would accelerate the depletion of the Social Security Trust Fund by about six months informed the nonpartisan CBO.
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