The Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill early Saturday morning that would increase Social Security benefits for more than 2 million Americans.
The bill would repeal two statutes that have long reduced pay for state and local police, firefighters, teachers, and other public sector employees and their spouses.
The bill passed by a vote of 76-20. President Biden is expected to sign the bill.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), said the bill would address a “horrible injustice.”
She worked in the public sector all her life under a state retirement system that did not include Social Security and, as a result, received a portion of the Social Security benefits that her spouse, who worked in the private sector, received after retirement. highlighted the plight of teachers in Maine. they died.
Collins has been working on this issue for more than 20 years and first introduced the bill in 2005. The bill would help more than 20,000 people in her home state.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) spoke about Betty, his high school civics teacher. After working in public schools all her life, Betty said she saw her husband's Social Security benefits cut to a fraction of what he expected.
“Her husband was working there when he passed away. [an] Exxon Refinery…Her social security was cut by a fraction because she worked in the public sector as a teacher,” he said.
Mr Cassidy said the former teacher would have received better benefits after retirement “if he hadn't worked at all”.
The bill would increase benefits for more than 70,000 people in Louisiana.
This bill, the Social Security Fairness Act, would repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), enacted in 1983, which reduces Social Security benefits for workers who receive public pensions that are not covered by Social Security.
The Government Pension Offset Scheme, established in 1977, will also be abolished, reducing benefits for spouses, widows and widowers whose spouses receive a public sector pension.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), the bill's Democratic sponsor, said the bill would help public school bus drivers, teachers and cafeteria workers.
He spoke of a woman who has been driving a bus for disabled children in Lawrence County, Ohio, for 40 years, but whose Social Security benefits would be reduced from $2,100 per month to $500 per month under current law. It is supposed to happen.
The Congressional Budget Office projects the bill would increase the federal budget deficit by $196 billion over the next 10 years and accelerate Social Security's projected collapse by six months.
Senators rejected an amendment proposed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would offset the cost of expanding benefits by gradually increasing the retirement age from 67 to 70 over 12 years. , passed this bill.
“If you're going to give more money to new people, you've got to take the money from somewhere. You've got to borrow it or print it, but you've got to get it from somewhere,” Paul said.
“You can't just push through Social Security bankruptcy and say, 'Well, yeah, it's going to go bankrupt in about nine years, but maybe I won't be here,'” he said. . “Shouldn't we be concerned about the future of Social Security?”
Paul said a vote on his amendment would reveal “who is truly fiscally responsible in the Senate.”
Fellow fiscal conservative Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) argued that WEP was enacted to “fix a serious problem in how Social Security benefits are calculated,” and that prior to that, the public sector and They claimed that individuals with various careers in the private sector were often recipients. They end up receiving more Social Security benefits than they are entitled to.
He acknowledged that laws may need to be tweaked to ensure people don't receive more benefits than they earned, but completely repealing WEP and GPO would leave the country with “some “We will return to a broken model that unfairly rewards some people and victimizes others,” he said. ”
He said the bill would be “unduly generous to 4 percent of the workforce, those who don't enroll in Social Security and instead contribute to ineligible pensions,” compared to 96 percent of the workforce who participate in Social Security. He argued that it would be “forcible'' to subsidize the government's benefits.
Edward Kelly, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, praised the bill's passage.
“Congress broke its promise to millions of Americans 40 years ago when it enacted windfall provisions and public pension offsets,” Kelly said. “Today, U.S. senators from both parties came together to right this wrong and ensure retired firefighters and other dedicated public servants receive the Social Security benefits they paid for. .”
The bill passed the House last month by a vote of 327-75.
