In the 118th Congress' waning days, the House of Representatives and the Senate passed legislation that will effectively boost Social Security benefits for nearly 3 million public-sector workers. President Joe Biden signed the bill on Jan. 5.
The Social Security Fairness Act of 2023 eliminated two provisions that reduced the Social Security benefits paid to public-sector workers.
One is the Windfall Elimination Provision, which reduced Social Security payments if beneficiaries received pensions from employers that did not withhold Social Security taxes from their salaries. This affected an estimated 2.1 million people, or about 3% of all Social Security beneficiaries. This provision most affected retirees of state and local government jobs such as teachers, firefighters and police officers.
The other is the Government Pension Offset, which reduced Social Security payments for spouses and surviving spouses of retirees who received government pensions. This affected about 750,000 people, or about 1% of all beneficiaries.
The law would cover payments starting in January 2024, so some beneficiaries would receive retroactive payments along with higher rates going forward.
The Social Security Fairness Act had been dormant in committee until September, when a bipartisan House majority used a rare maneuver, a discharge petition, to bring it to the floor.
On Nov. 12, 2024, the House passed the bill, 327-75. The Senate followed on Dec. 21, 2024, passing it, 76-20. Both chambers' votes were heavily bipartisan.
At a White House signing ceremony, Biden said the bill "is about a simple proposition: Americans who have worked hard all their life to earn an honest living should be able to retire with economic security and dignity — that's the entire purpose of the Social Security system."
The decision comes with a cost: The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, estimates that enacting the new law would add $196 billion to deficits over a decade.
In their 2024 report, Social Security's trustees projected that the program's trust fund would be depleted by 2033, while moving funds from a related disability program trust fund could extend that date to 2035.
Passing the new law would accelerate that insolvency date by six months, the Congressional Budget Office projected. And once insolvency hits, current law mandates a 23% cut in benefits.
We rated Biden's separate promise to put Social Security on a path to long-run solvency a Promise Broken, and the new law underscores that assessment.
"We should be talking about how to prevent this cut, not make it bigger and happen sooner," Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group advocating for fiscal balance, said in a statement.
The law Biden signed did not affect every Social Security beneficiary, but it will boost benefits for about 3 million Americans. We rate the promise Compromise.