Social Security Fairness Act May Increase Thousands and thousands’ Advantages

With just a couple of weeks left on this session of Congress, senators are calling for leadership to advance a bipartisan Social Security bill that will expand advantages for public-sector staff and their families.

Older Americans who receive public pensions — think: teachers, law enforcement officials and government employees — typically receive reduced Social Security advantages, if any. And while public pensions don’t disqualify someone from receiving Social Security, certain provisions within the law can significantly lower advantages.

On the whole, staff turn into eligible for Social Security after working and paying payroll taxes for about 10 years in qualifying jobs. While a number of public-sector staff don’t pay into Social Security long enough to be eligible, there are others who work second jobs or have second careers within the private sector and do qualify for advantages.

The Social Security Fairness Act would revoke two provisions — the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset — to extend Social Security advantages for these public-sector staff who paid into this system.

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Eliminating the first windfall provision would profit roughly 2 million people whose advantages are reduced because they receive government pensions, and one other 800,000 can be helped by the elimination of the opposite provision, which affects the advantages of surviving spouses who receive pensions, based on sponsors of the laws.

Lawmakers call for a vote to expand Social Security advantages

Members of Congress supporting the Social Security Fairness Act, which the House passed last week with a 327-75 vote tally, say it will improve the Social Security system by ensuring that public-sector staff get the advantages they deserve. The changes can be effective for advantages payable after December 2023, based on a summary of the House bill.

The act has also gained strong support within the Senate, with greater than 60 senators cosponsoring it. Still, the bill’s fate is uncertain.

Advocates wish to get the act passed during this lame-duck session of Congress, partially because they feel confident President Joe Biden would sign it. They can not say the identical for President-elect Donald Trump.

Shannon Benton, executive director of The Senior Residents League, says her organization has been pushing to eliminate these provisions for a long time.

“Lots of persons are surprised: They do not understand that in the event that they worked at a job where they did pay into Social Security, but then had a job where they didn’t, that they’d be penalized,” Benton says. “It’s especially hard on spouses.”

The act would cost $196 billion over 10 years, based on the Congressional Budget Office, and it will bump up Social Security’s looming insolvency by about six months, based on the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which opposes the act.

“They need to call this bill the Social Security UnFairness Act; it creates a Windfall Expansion Provision for a small variety of beneficiaries who would get to double-dip their retirement advantages,” Maya MacGuineas, the committee’s president, said in a statement.

Some deficit hawks in Congress oppose the act for similar reasons. Proponents say the price must be addressed one other way.

“For greater than 40 years, the Social Security trust funds have been artificially propped up by stolen advantages that tens of millions of Americans paid for and that their families deserve,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., said in a statement after the act passed the House. “The long-term solvency of Social Security is a problem that Congress must address — but a problem that’s wholly separate from allowing Virginians, Louisianans and Americans across our country who did their part and contributed their earnings to retire with dignity.”

Other groups, including the National Association of Police Organizations, have downplayed the price.

“Congress cannot proceed to harm the financial security of tens of millions of our nation’s public servants for the subsequent 10 years just to offer the [Social Security] Trust Fund six additional months of solvency,” the association said in a recent statement.

Benton says this can be a rare case where numerous lawmakers on each side of the aisle have shown they will actually come together.

“I felt prefer it gave people hope, when it passed within the House, that a bipartisan bill could gain traction,” Benton says. “So for the Senate to not do it, it’s sort of cowardly.”

Will the Social Security Fairness Act turn into law?

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said in a release that they urge Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to place the act up for a vote as soon as possible.

Nonetheless, passage of the act is removed from certain on account of complicated year-end politicking. Congress is out of town the week of Thanksgiving and nevertheless starting the week of Christmas. That leaves just three weeks to get the Social Security Fairness Act — or anything — passed.

Within the limited time left on this session, Democratic leadership within the Senate is targeted on confirming Biden’s judicial nominees, and it’s seen as unlikely that the Social Security Fairness Act would get a vote as a stand-alone bill, a source near the legislative process tells Money.

But there’s still hope it could get passed one other way: Advocates and members of Congress envision the act being linked to a bigger legislative package, either a government spending bill that Congress might want to pass to avoid a shutdown or a defense authorization bill, the source says.

“There’s only going to be one, perhaps two more major bills which might be going to undergo the Senate between now and the time that they adjourn,” the source adds. “Their best shot of getting this through is to get the leadership on each side, in each bodies — House and Senate — to conform to have it attached to a must-pass bill.”

The challenge: Republican leadership within the House previously resisted calls for a vote on the act, and members ultimately needed to force a vote. So while the Social Security Fairness Act could be included in a compromise spending bill, that opposition from the GOP leadership may re-emerge as an obstacle.

If the Social Security Fairness Act doesn’t pass on this Congress, lawmakers would have to start out the legislative process over next 12 months. Trump takes office Jan. 20.

Schumer’s office didn’t reply to Money’s request for comment on the trail forward for the Social Security Fairness Act.

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