A new bill was heard and passed by the House of Representatives. It could help millions of people on Social Security get more money every month.
Both parties agreed on the Social Security Fairness Act and it was passed. It is now on its way to the Senate, where it should also be approved.
The Fairness Act for Social Security
This bill was put forward by Democrats Abigail Span berger from Virginia and Republicans Garret Graves from Louisiana.
It wants to get rid of two federal rules that keep about 2.8 million Americans who work for the government, a state, or a city from getting their full Social Security benefits.
In a joint statement, they said, “A bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives showed up for the millions of Americans—police officers, teachers, firefighters, and other local and state public servants—who worked a second job to make ends meet or started a second career to support their families after retiring from public service.”
Many people in the U.S. House agreed on a safe way for hundreds of thousands of spouses, widows, and widowers to retire who are not getting their spouses’ benefits because they chose to work for the government.
What rules did it get rid of? The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO) are two kinds of rules.
It is said by the SSA that the WEP is a way to change Social Security worker benefits for people who get “non-covered pensions” but can still get benefits because they have other wages that are covered by Social Security.
A non-covered pension is one that you get from a job that does not tax your pay for Social Security. If a company or state or local government is not based in the United States, this is usually the case. About 2 million people are affected by this rule right now.
The GPO changes how much people who get “non-covered pensions” from Social Security get in spousal or widow(er) payments. Almost 800,000 retirees will have to follow this rule.
If the bill was thrown out, it would be possible to:
- Get rid of parts of the law that lower Social Security benefits for people who get other benefits, like a pension from the state or city government.
- Get rid of the government pension offset, which can make Social Security payments less for spouses, widows, and widowers who also get government pensions.
- The windfall elimination rule can lower Social Security benefits for people who also get a pension or disability benefit from a job that didn’t pay Social Security taxes. It should be taken away.
People who are already affected by the WEP and GPO would be able to make ends meet with these rules because they give them more benefits.
There is some bad news: the Congressional Budget Office says that this bill would cause the government deficits to grow by $195 billion over 10 years. This would make the gap in Social Security even bigger.
Graves says, “For 40 years, they have been unfair to a certain group of workers and treating people differently.” “They are not people who are getting paid too much or too little,” he said.
The bill won in the House, but it still needs to be voted on in the Senate and signed by the president before it becomes law. But a lot of work is being done to make sure it passes with little trouble.
They asked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to put the bill up for a vote. Sherrod Brown, Susan Collins, Span berger, and Graves are all Democrats who support the bill.
People who had to follow the rules said, “We are being punished for supporting and protecting our neighbors and families, educating our children, giving our Veterans medical care, delivering our mail, and more.”
