Senate Will Soon Vote on Speeding Up Social Security Insolvency

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced yesterday that the Senate would vote on the Social Security Fairness Act, which passed the House in November. This bill would repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO), two policies that reduce Social Security benefits for those who are otherwise eligible for non-Social Security government pensions. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that enacting this bill would hasten Social Security insolvency by six months and add $196 billion to deficits over a decade.  

Because of the advanced insolvency, we estimate that repealing WEP and GPO would reduce lifetime Social Security benefits by $25,000 for the typical couple retiring at insolvency, including more than $8,000 in the first year alone.  

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

It is truly astonishing that at a time when we are just nine years away from the trust fund for the nation’s largest program being completely exhausted, lawmakers are about to consider speeding that up by six months. And add on top of that another $200 billion in new borrowing as a result. We are racing to our own fiscal demise.  

Even worse is that repealing WEP and GPO does nothing to address the windfalls they are intended to eliminate – instead, it just restores windfalls for folks who have other government pensions. What an incredulous set of events.

Hastening Social Security’s insolvency will only make its consequences worse; benefits will be cut by an additional 1 percent while reducing lifetime benefits for a typical couple by $25,000. We should be talking about how to prevent this cut, not make it bigger and happen sooner.

The Senate should reject WEP and GPO repeal. Instead, they should come together to try to fix the issues with WEP and GPO as part of a comprehensive package to strengthen Social Security, prevent insolvency, and make the program’s finances sustainable over the long term.

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For more information, please contact Matt Klucher, Assistant Director for Media Relations, at klucher@crfb.org.