Social Security Fairness Act clears key Senate hurdles with passage down to the wire

Legislation to expand Social Security benefits to millions of Americans cleared two procedural hurdles in the U.S. Senate this week, and is now headed toward possible passage on Friday, with the clock ticking and only days left in the current session of Congress. 

Senators on Wednesday voted 73-27 to approve a motion to move forward with consideration of the Social Security Fairness Act, and then on Thursday voted 73-23 to proceed to the bill, with both tallies clearing the 60-vote fillibuster threshold. Only a simple majority is needed for final passage in the Senate in order to pass the bill to President Biden’s desk. 

Vice President-elect JD Vance of Ohio was among the 24 Republican senators to join 49 Democrats to advance the measure on Wednesday. Vance and fellow Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, along with Joe Manchin, an independent and outgoing senator from West Virginia, did not participate in Thursday’s vote.

The Senate was scheduled to reconvene on Friday, and is expected to resume consideration of the measure after votes related to confirming two judges to serve in California.  

“We will vote on taking up the Social Security Fairness Act to repeal flawed policies that eat away at the benefits of those who’ve worked as teachers, firefighters, postal workers, or public sector workers,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on social media Wednesday. “Retirees deprived of their hard-earned benefits will be watching closely.”

The New York Democrat has pushed to bring the measure up for a full vote, which would eliminate two federal policies that prevent million of Americans, including police officers, firefighters, postal workers, teachers and others with a public pension from collecting their full Social Security benefits. 

“Social Security is a bedrock of our middle class. You pay into it for 40 quarters, you earned it, it should be there when you retire,” Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who lost his seat in the November election, told the chamber ahead of Wednesday’s vote. “All these workers are asking for is for what they earned.” 

Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican relayed having a retired teacher cry in his office, “not understanding why she was getting less in Social Security spousal benefits than if she had never worked at all.”  

Sen. Thom Tillis spoke against measure, saying that while a small percentage of people are not getting what they should from Social Security, enacting what he framed as an unfunded government mandate that would increase the federal deficit “is not the way to fix it.” 

“This bill will take $200 billion during the 10-year period out of the Social Security trust fund without any way to pay for it,” the North Carolina Republican added.

What is the Social Security Fairness Act?

Decades in the making, the Social Security Fairness Act would repeal two federal policies — the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO) — that broadly reduce payments to nearly 3 million retirees. 

That includes those who also collect pensions from state and federal jobs that aren’t covered by Social Security, including teachers, police officers and U.S. postal workers. The bill would also end a second provision that reduces Social Security benefits for those workers’ surviving spouses and family members. The WEP impacts about 2 million Social Security beneficiaries and the GPO nearly 800,000 retirees.

“This stuff takes time, but 21 years is ridiculous,” said Brown of the process. The Senate held its first hearings into the policies in 2003. 

The measure, which passed the House in November, had 62 cosponsors when it was introduced in the Senate last year. Yet the bill’s bipartisan support eroded some in recent days, with some Republican lawmakers voicing doubts due to its cost. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the proposed legislation would add a projected $195 billion to federal deficits over a decade. 

At least one GOP senator who signed onto similar legislation last year, Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana, said he was still “weighing” whether to vote for the bill. “Nothing ever gets paid for, so it’s further indebtedness, I don’t know,” Braun said last week, the Associated Press reported. 

That said, Braun did vote to proceed with the legislation on Wednesday. 

“In the end it’s going to come down to individual members are going to make their own decisions about where they want to come down on that,” incoming Republican leader John Thune said at a press conference Tuesday. “Obviously I am concerned about the long-term solvency of Social Security and that is an issue I think we need to address.”

Thune, who represents South Dakota, opposed Wednesday’s motion to proceed.

Without Senate approval, the bill’s fate would end with the current session of Congress, and would need to be re-introduced in the next Congress.