Collecting benefits as a retiree is not always as easy as it seems. There are multiple factors in play that determine whether or not a person is entitled to receive Social Security benefits, and one of them is a person’s job history. This is why this Tuesday, 327 lawmakers gave back the right to certain retirees to collect benefits, in a historic vote.

The law that was approved in the House of Representatives is called the Social Security Fairness Act and would repeal two rules that reduce Social Security benefits for individuals who receive pension benefits from state or local governments. The rules are, the windfall elimination provision, or WEP, that reduces Social Security benefits for individuals who worked in jobs where they did not pay Social Security payroll taxes and now receive pension or disability benefits from those employers and the government pension offset, or GPO, which reduces Social Security benefits for spouses, widows and widowers who also receive pension checks.

Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Garret Graves, R-La. were the original sponsors of the bill and in a joint statement they stated “This has been 40 years of treating people differently, discriminating against a certain set of workers. They’re not people that are overpaid; they’re not people that are underworked.”

And the number of beneficiaries is not small, according to the Congressional Research Service about 3% of all Social Security beneficiaries (about 2.1 million people) were affected by the WEP in 2023 and about 1% of all Social Security beneficiaries (or 745,679 individuals) were affected by the GPO.

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare called the measure a “step in the right direction” and a “bipartisan victory for public sector employees and their families.” With Max Richtman, president and CEO expressing his measured satisfaction with the efforts “We have long advocated for the repeal of the WEP and GPO provisions, though we would have preferred that Congress take up the more comprehensive improvements in Rep. John Larson’s Social Security 2100 Act.”

Larson’s proposal would also repeal the WEP and GPO as well as implement other temporary benefit increases, but unlike this bill, it has a plan on how to pay for it, require people with more than $400,000 in income to pay more Social Security payroll taxes. As he explained “I could not vote for the bills on the floor tonight because they are not paid for and therefore put Americans’ hard-earned benefits at risk. It would hurt most deeply the five million of our fellow Americans who receive below poverty checks, and almost half of all Social Security recipients who rely on their earned benefits for the majority of their income.”

Larson also voted against the Equal Treatment of Public Servants Act, which would not have repealed the WEP, but would use a new formula for Social Security retirement and disability benefits for pensioners.

Critics say the bill will weaken Social Security

Larson is not the only critic of the bill, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the bill would add an estimated $196 billion to deficits over the next decade to Social Security, something that the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget could also not get on board with.

Spanberger did not let this issue stop the progress of the bill, as the calculates six months that the program would lose due to the implementation is not enough to justify leaving Americans bereft of benefits “The long-term solvency of Social Security is an issue that Congress must address. But that is a separate issue from allowing Americans who did their part, who contributed their earnings, for them to retire with dignity.”

Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute vehemently disagrees, emphasizing “This is not the right policy. It’s what special interests were pushing, and politicians are responsive to their demands. We should reform Social Security so that it provides basic income security to the most vulnerable Americans in old age without adding to the debt or tax burden that younger workers face.”

The proposal will still need to be passed in the Senate before being signed into law, but there is no indication this would not happen.

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