WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is pushing for a vote on legislation that would provide full Social Security benefits to millions of people, creating a possible path in the final days of the lame-duck Congress.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday he would begin the process for a final vote on the bill, known as the Social Security Fairness Act, which would eliminate policies that currently cut Social Security benefits to about 2.8 million people limited.
Schumer said the bill would “ensure that Americans are not wrongly denied their well-earned Social Security benefits simply because they have chosen to work in public service at some point in their career.”
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The legislation passed with bipartisan support, and a Senate version of the bill introduced last year had 62 cosponsors. But the bill still needs the support of at least 60 senators to pass Congress. It would then go to President Biden.
Decades in the making, the bill would repeal two federal policies — the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset — that broadly reduce payments to two groups of Social Security recipients: people who also receive a pension from a job that doesn’t is covered by social security. Security and surviving spouses of Social Security recipients who receive their own government pension.
The bill would further increase pressure on Social Security Trust funds, which were believed to be unable to pay out full benefits as of 2035. It would add an estimated $195 billion to the federal deficit over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Conservatives have opposed the bill and decried its costs. But at the same time, some Republicans have pushed Schumer to vote on it.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said last month that current federal restrictions “punish families across the country who have spent part of their career in public service with a separate pension. We are talking about police officers, firefighters, teachers and other public employees being punished for serving their communities.”
He predicted that the bill would pass.
