President Biden on Sunday signed legislation expanding Social Security benefits for millions of retired Americans, including firefighters, police officers and teachers.
Social Security Fairness Act Eliminates two federal policies It prevented workers with public pensions from collecting their full benefits under the federal retirement program and reduced benefits for surviving spouses and family members of those workers.
“Biden is the first president to expand Social Security benefits in more than 20 years,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement. “The bill he is signing today will increase benefits for more than 2.5 million Americans by hundreds of dollars per month.”
The new law came right down to the wire, with Mr Biden signing it just weeks before the end of his presidency and after the Senate passed it on December 21. 76-20 votes were cast to pass this measure in the final hours of the 118th Congress. House MLA Bill approvedWhich is known as HR 82 in November.
Increasing Social Security payments to public pension recipients has been in the works for decades, with the Senate holding its first hearing on the policy in 2003.
The Social Security Fairness Act had bipartisan support, yet faced last-minute objections from some Republicans due to its cost. According to the Congressional Budget Office, an estimate would be added to the legislation. $195 billion For more than a decade of federal deficits.
The benefit increase under the new law will be retroactive to December 2023. As a result, eligible recipients who previously received only partial benefits will receive full payments retroactive to one year earlier.
Specifically, the new Social Security law repeals policies called the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO), which together worked to reduce Social Security payments for 2.5 million retirees.
Congressional Budget Office estimated According to the Associated Press, it said in September that eliminating WEP would increase monthly payments to affected Social Security recipients by an average of $360 through December 2025.
The agency found that eliminating the GPO would increase monthly benefits by an average of $700 in December 2025 for the 380,000 recipients who receive benefits based on surviving spouse. The increase would average $390,000 or $1,190 for surviving spouses receiving widow's or widower's benefits.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Contributed to this report.