A bill to raise Social Security benefits for thousands of public service workers and retirees in Connecticut cleared a key hurdle in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, moving the legislation closer to final passage with only a couple of days left in the session.
The bipartisan "Social Security Fairness Act" got a jolt of momentum after it overwhelmingly passed the House last month. Since then, advocates for repealing the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset made a last-ditch lobbying blitz to get the Senate to take it up before the current Congress winds down.
As labor leaders and other supporters stood outside the Capitol at a rainy press conference last week, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., surprised the crowd by announcing the Senate would vote on the legislation before lawmakers leave town on Friday. They argue the decades-old measures have hurt public service workers who collect pensions but have also worked jobs covered by Social Security.
Support for repealing WEP and GPO brought together a range of coalitions and groups including lawmakers in both parties as well as unions representing industries like education, law enforcement, government employees and other public workers. The Fraternal Order of Police announced a day earlier that President-elect Donald Trump told their leadership he would back the legislation.
But critics raised concerns because there is no offset to pay for the repeal, and it would speed up the projected timeline of Social Security becoming insolvent, though both sides have acknowledged that Congress will need to deal with larger reforms to the program for its long-term financial health.
Schumer set up a make-or-break vote on whether the bill would inch closer to becoming law or languish in this Congress. If lawmakers blocked it, the effort would have effectively died and proponents would have needed to restart the process next year with a new Congress and administration.
The Senate ultimately advanced it in a procedural vote on Wednesday known as a motion to proceed. Lawmakers overcame the 60-vote threshold to bypass a filibuster in a 73-27 vote. They still need to hold another vote in the next two days if they want to get the bill to President Joe Biden's desk before the holiday recess.
The bill was expected to have enough support since 62 senators co-sponsored it. That included both of Connecticut’s senators, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, who voted for it Wednesday.
The vote was a culmination of a years-long effort by groups and unions across the country and the state like the Connecticut Education Association, the Connecticut chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, the Connecticut Alliance for Retired Americans and the Association of Retired Teachers of Connecticut. They argue public service workers who have paid into the Social Security system through other jobs have been unfairly penalized.
"This isn’t a singular fairness issue. This is a workforce issue, and we really have spent a lot of time highlighting that — that you can break through the noise and you can encourage a bipartisan approach to fixing what has been a 40-year problem," CEA President Kate Dias said.
The Social Security Fairness Act would eliminate two provisions that reduce payments to certain beneficiaries as well as spouses and surviving family members who also collect a pension from jobs that were not covered by Social Security. That can include teachers, police officers, firefighters, government employees and other public servants.
The Windfall Elimination Provision can lower how much beneficiaries receive from Social Security if they also get pensions or disability benefits from uncovered work. It applies to those who paid Social Security taxes on less than 30 years of substantial earnings, which is currently set at $31,275 in 2024.
WEP affects more than 22,000 beneficiaries in Connecticut, with the vast majority of them retired workers, according to December 2023 estimates from the Congressional Research Service. Connecticut is one of 15 states where WEP applies to teachers.
The Government Pension Offset can cut Social Security spousal or survivor benefits by two-thirds of the non-covered pension from local, state or federal government employment. For some who receive a teacher’s pension, the cuts can be larger than their spousal benefits, so they essentially receive nothing through Social Security.
The bill easily passed the House last month, including support from four of the five Democratic members in Connecticut’s delegation. U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, voted against it because it does not include an offset similar to that in his own Social Security reform bill, which seeks to temporarily remove those provisions. His own bill would fund the repeal of WEP and GPO through raising the income cap on taxable earnings for Social Security.
Larson, who serves as ranking member of the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee, has been pushing for more comprehensive reforms to Social Security for years. His legislation, “Social Security 2100 Act,” has support from 188 Democrats but no GOP co-sponsors. That will become even more challenging next session when Republicans control both chambers of Congress and Trump returns to the White House.
Current estimates show the Trust Fund for old age and survivors insurance will be able to pay 100% of Social Security benefits through 2033. After that, it could result in people receiving reduced benefits, amounting to about a 20% cut.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that if the bipartisan legislation is enacted and repeals both provisions, it would cost nearly $196 billion over the next decade. Others warned against ending WEP and GPO without an offset, arguing that it will be a drain on the Social Security Trust Fund.
Ahead of the vote, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., criticized the accelerated process for bringing up the bill as well as concerns about having no offsets. In the House, authors of the bill sought to circumvent normal procedures and force a vote on the House floor. They used a discharge petition where they needed to collect a majority of signatures from lawmakers in order to get a vote on the bill. Tillis noted the Senate held no committee hearings on the legislation.
"So it is something we need to fix, but this is not the way to fix it. We are 10 years away from most economists' consensus believing that the Social Security Trust Fund is going to reach insolvency," Tillis said Wednesday. "To right a wrong for a small percentage of poeple that should get fairly. treated, they are going to take $200 billion over 10 years to pay for this. that pulls insolvency forward by six months."
But those affected by the decrease in their benefits argue it unfairly affects many who have worked in public service, like teachers, police officers and firefighters, as well as survivor benefits for those who served in local, state or federal government.
A number of labor unions across industries have been at the forefront of the years-long push to repeal WEP and GPO.
Those representing educators see the deductions as a particular roadblock for teachers because many of them need to work second or multiple jobs that pay into the Social Security system. And they note that it is an issue that disproportionately affects women, especially for many who raise their children and then reenter the workforce.
Last month, Mary Moninger-Elia, a retired public school teacher in West Haven who used to serve as the vice president at-large for AFT Connecticut, helped pass out flyers and joined other advocates from across the country to lobby Senate offices to support the legislation. Moninger-Elia has been working on the issue since 1997 but said her efforts ramped up in 2020 as a part of the National WEP/GPO Repeal Task Force. At the national level, AFT President Randi Weingarten spoke at the D.C. rally last week, pushing for protecting those who join public service jobs when they retire.
Advocates argue that WEP and GPO are barriers to hiring and retaining talent in Connecticut's workforce, especially when it comes to second-career educators who have worked in a different field and decided to transition into education. Dias of CEA said it makes it challenging "to attract people when there’s such a significant consequence to their joining the profession."
"It’s a workforce, recruitment and retention issue," CEA Vice President Joslyn DeLancey said, "especially in directly impacted states like Connecticut, like Massachusetts, like Ohio, and it’s also an economic issue."
The Connecticut Mirror/Connecticut Public Radio federal policy reporter position is made possible, in part, by funding from the Robert and Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation.
