The US Capitol Building in Washington, DC, United States on Tuesday, July 23, 2024.
Graeme Sloan | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A bipartisan bill to change the rules for Social Security benefits for retirees passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday, with 327 lawmakers voting to support the measure.
Now, the proposal heads to the Senate, where the chamber’s version of the bill has 62 co-sponsors, “exceeding the majority required to pass the bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate and send it to the president’s desk for his signature into law.” Reps. Abigail Spanberger, Democrat of Virginia, and Garrett Graves, Republican of Los Angeles, co-leaders of the bill, said in a joint statement.
The proposal — called the Social Security Fairness Act — would eliminate rules that reduce Social Security benefits for individuals who receive retirement benefits from state or local governments.
It would repeal the windfall elimination provision, or WEP, that reduces Social Security benefits for individuals who worked jobs in which they did not pay Social Security payroll taxes and now receive pension or disability benefits from those employers. About 3% of all Social Security beneficiaries — about 2.1 million people — were affected by WEP as of December 2023, according to the Congressional Research Service.
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The bill would also eliminate government pension offsetting, or GPO, reducing Social Security benefits for spouses, widows and widowers who also receive pension checks. As of December, about 1% of all Social Security beneficiaries — or 745,679 individuals — were affected by the GPO, according to the Congressional Research Service.
These rules, which have been in place for decades, reduce the income of some retired police officers, teachers, firefighters and other public employees, Graves said during a speech Tuesday on the House floor.
“It’s been 40 years of treating people differently, discriminating against a certain group of workers,” Graves said.
“They’re not overpaid people, they’re not underemployed people,” he said.
Supporters call the bill a “step in the right direction.”
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare said the House vote on the Social Security Fairness Act is “a step in the right direction” and “a bipartisan victory for public employees and their families.”
“We have long advocated for repeal of the WEP and GPO provisions, although we would have preferred Congress to take up the more comprehensive improvements in Rep. John Larson’s Social Security Act 2100,” Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Social Security Committee, said in a statement. And medical care.
Larson’s proposal, which has 188 co-sponsors in the House, would also eliminate the WEP and GPO, while implementing other temporary benefit increases. To help pay for these changes, people with incomes over $400,000 would be required to pay more in Social Security payroll taxes.
On Tuesday, Larson voted against the Social Security Fairness Act, as well as another bill, the Equal Treatment of Public Employees Act. The latest bill would use a new formula for Social Security retirement and disability benefits for pensioners instead of eliminating the Women’s Empowerment Program. It will not change the Group Policy Object (GPO).
The bill, proposed by Rep. Jody Arrington, R-Texas, failed when it was put to a vote.
“I was unable to vote for the bills on the table tonight because they were not paid for, thus putting Americans’ hard-earned benefits at risk,” Larson said in a statement. “This will severely hurt the five million of our fellow Americans who receive below-poverty checks, and the nearly half of all Social Security beneficiaries who rely on their earned benefits for the majority of their income.”
Critics say the bill would weaken Social Security
The Social Security Fairness Act would add an estimated $196 billion to the deficit over the next decade, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. It would also bring the Social Security Trust Fund exhaustion dates closer by an estimated six months, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
“The long-term solvency of Social Security is an issue that Congress must address,” Spanberger said on the House floor Tuesday.
“But that is a separate issue from allowing Americans who have done their part, who have contributed their gains, to retire with dignity,” she added.
However, critics say Social Security’s financing problems should be a priority for Congress now. The program’s actuaries project that the trust fund used to pay retirement benefits may be depleted in 2033, at which point 79% of benefits will be paid.
“This is not the right policy,” said Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlements policy at the Cato Institute. “This is what special interests were pushing, and politicians are responding to their demands.”
Although Arrington’s proposed replacement bill would not address the GPO, it would provide a “fairer formula” for the WEP, Boccia said. However, broader changes are needed to shore up the program’s finances.
“We must reform Social Security so that it provides basic income security for the most vulnerable Americans in old age without increasing the debt or tax burden faced by younger workers,” Boccia said.
