Legislation to expand Social Security benefits to millions of Americans passed the U.S. Senate early Saturday and is now on the desk of President Biden, who is expected to sign the measure into law.
Senators voted 76-20 in favor of the Social Security Fairness Act eliminate two federal policies that prevent nearly 3 million people, including police officers, firefighters, postal workers, teachers and others with public pensions, from receiving their full Social Security benefits. The legislation has been decades in the making, as the Senate held its first hearings on the policy in 2003.
“The Senate is finally correcting a wrong that has existed for 50 years,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said after senators approved the legislation at 12:15 p.m. Saturday.
The bill’s passage is “a monumental victory for millions of public sector workers who have been denied the full benefits they rightly earned,” said Shannon Benton, executive director of the Senior Citizens League, which advocates for retirees and who has long been calling for the expansion of social security benefits. “This legislation finally restores fairness to the system and ensures that the hard work of teachers, first responders and countless government workers is truly recognized.”
The vote came down to the wire as the Senate looked to wrap up its current session. Senators late Friday rejected four amendments and a budgetary point of order that would have derailed the measure given the short time remaining to implement it.
Newly elected Vice President J.D. Vance of Ohio was one of 24 Republican senators who joined 49 Democrats to advance the measure during an initial procedural vote that took place Wednesday.
“Social security is a foundation of our middle class. You pay for it for 40 quarters, you earned it, it should be there when you retire,” said Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who lost his seat in the November election. Chamber ahead of Wednesday’s vote. “All these workers are asking for is what they earned.”
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 benefits to nearly 3 million retirees.
That includes those who also collect pensions from state and federal jobs not 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 the surviving spouses and relatives of these workers. The WEP affects approximately 2 million Social Security beneficiaries and the GPO affects nearly 800,000 retirees.
The measure, which passed the House in November, had 62 cosponsors when it was introduced in the Senate last year. Still, bipartisan support has waned in recent days, with some Republican lawmakers expressing doubts about its costs. The proposed legislation is expected to add $195 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Without Senate approval, the bill’s fate would have ended during the current session of Congress and would have to be reintroduced in the next Congress.
