Senate Approves Legislation Protecting Social Security Benefits

Senate Passes Social Security Fairness Act

The US Senate has passed a bipartisan bill to increase Social Security benefits for millions of federal, state, and local public sector workers. The legislation, known as the Social Security Fairness Act, aims to eliminate two policies that have reduced Social Security benefits for these employees.

Elimination of Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO)

The WEP reduces benefits for retired or disabled workers who have fewer than 30 years of significant earnings from employment covered by Social Security if they also receive pensions on the basis of noncovered employment. The GPO, on the other hand, reduces spousal or surviving spousal benefits of people who receive pensions on the basis of noncovered employment.

These provisions affect public sector workers, including firefighters, police officers, and teachers, who are eligible for government pensions from jobs where they didn’t pay into Social Security. However, they may have paid into the program through other jobs or had their spouses do so.

Impact of the Legislation

If signed into law by President Joe Biden, the legislation will apply to all benefits payable after December 2023. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will cost nearly $200 billion over 10 years. Critics argue that this will hasten Social Security’s insolvency date, which is currently projected to become insolvent by 2033 or 2035.

Support for the Legislation

The bill’s chief co-sponsors, outgoing Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, have stressed that the alternate formulas used to determine Social Security benefits for pension-eligible public sector workers penalized them for choosing to serve their communities. They argue that eliminating these provisions will provide much-needed financial security for these workers.

Criticisms

Some critics contend that the WEP provisions are a reasonable means to prevent overgenerous and unintended benefits to certain workers who would otherwise profit from the Social Security regular benefit formula. However, supporters of the legislation argue that it is unfair to penalize public sector workers for their service to their communities.