Major Social Security Changes Set for 2025 New Rules to Reshape Benefits System

The House of Representatives has heard and passed a new bill that could help millions of people on Social Security get more money every month. The Social Security Fairness Act was passed with support from both parties. It is now on its way to the Senate, where it should also be accepted.

The Fairness Act for Social Security

Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat from Virginia, and Garret Graves, a Republican from Louisiana, proposed this bill. Its goal is to get rid of two federal policies that keep about 2.8 million Americans who work in federal, state, or local jobs from getting full Social Security benefits.

“A bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives showed up for the millions of Americans—police officers, teachers, firefighters, and other local and state public servants—who worked a second job to make ends meet or started a second career to support their families after retiring from public service,” they said in a joint statement. A majority of both parties in the U.S. House agreed to give hundreds of thousands of spouses, widows, and widowers who are denied their spouses’ benefits because they chose to work in public service a safe way to retire.

What rules did it get rid of? There is the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP)

The SSA says that the WEP is a way to change Social Security worker benefits for people who get “non-covered pensions” but are still eligible for benefits because they have other Social Security-covered wages.A non-covered pension is paid by a company that does not take Social Security taxes out of your pay. This is usually the case for state and local governments or companies that are not based in the United States. At the moment, this rule affects about 2 million beneficiaries.

The GPO changes the amount of spousal or widow(er) payments people who get “non-covered pensions” get from Social Security. Almost 800,000 retirees will be affected by this rule.

If the bill was thrown out, it would be possible to:

• Get rid of parts of the law that lower Social Security benefits for people who get other benefits, like a pension from the state or city government.
• Get rid of the government pension offset, which can make Social Security payments less for spouses, widows, and widowers who also get government pensions.
• The windfall elimination rule can lower Social Security benefits for people who also get a pension or disability benefit from a job that didn’t pay Social Security taxes. It should be taken away.

For people who are currently subject to the WEP and GPO, these rules would help them make ends meet by giving them more benefits. The bad news is that the Congressional Budget Office says that putting this bill into action would increase government deficits by $195 billion over 10 years. This would make the Social Security shortfall even bigger.

Graves says, “This has been 40 years of treating people differently, discriminating against a certain group of workers.” “They’re not people who are overpaid or underworked,” he said.

Even though the bill won in the House, it still has a long way to go because it hasn’t been voted on in the Senate yet, and the president would have to sign it into law. But people are working hard to make sure it passes with as little trouble as possible.

Democrats Sherrod Brown and Susan Collins, who are supporters of the bill, along with Spanberger and Graves, asked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring the bill up for a vote. In a passionate plea, they said that Americans who have to follow the rules “are being punished for supporting and protecting our neighbors and families, educating our children, giving our Veterans medical care, delivering our mail, and more.”