President Biden signed legislation Sunday that expands Social Security benefits to millions of retired Americans, including firefighters, police officers and teachers.
“Americans who have worked hard all their lives to live with integrity should be able to retire with economic security and dignity,” Biden said at a White House rally ahead of signing the Social Security Fairness Act. “This means signing the Social Security Fairness Act,” he said. An average increase of $360 per month for more than 2.5 million Social Security recipients.
“This is a big deal for middle-class families like the one I grew up in,” the president added.
Those beneficiaries will also receive a one-time payment of several thousand dollars to make up for any shortfall in benefits they would have received in 2024, the president said.
Social Security Fairness Act repeal two federal policies It prohibits employees receiving state pensions from receiving full benefits under the Federal Retirement System and reduces benefits for the employee's surviving spouse or family members. It was.
“Mr. Biden is the first president in more than 20 years to expand Social Security benefits,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement. “The bill he signs today will expand benefits by hundreds of dollars a month for more than 2.5 million Americans.”
The new law was rushed forward and Biden signed it after it passed the Senate on Dec. 21, just weeks before the end of his presidential term. The vote was 76-20. The bill is expected to be passed during the closing hours of the 118th Congress. member of the House of Representatives approved the billknown as H.R. 82, November.
long and difficult road
Strengthening Social Security payments to public pensioners has been in the works for decades, and the Senate held its first hearing on the policy in 2003.
The Social Security Fairness Act had bipartisan support but faced last-minute opposition from some Republicans citing cost. The legislation would add an estimated amount, according to the Congressional Budget Office. $195 billion We have been in a federal deficit for more than a decade.
The benefit increases under the new law will apply retroactively to December 2023. As a result, eligible recipients who previously received only partial benefits will now receive the full amount retroactively for one year.
Specifically, the new Social Security law repeals policies known as the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO), which together would reduce Social Security payments to 2.5 million retirees. The purpose is to.
Congressional Budget Office Estimation It was announced in September that eliminating WEP would increase monthly payments for affected Social Security recipients by an average of $360 by December 2025, according to the Associated Press.
Repealing the GPO would increase monthly benefits by an average of $700 in December 2025 for the 380,000 beneficiaries who receive benefits on a surviving spouse basis, officials revealed. The increase amounts to an average of $1,190 for 390,000 people receiving widow benefits or surviving spouses.
“Previous law denied millions of Americans access to the full amount of their Social Security benefits,” Biden said after the bill was signed into law.
contributed to this report.
