WEP And GPO Tactics Raise Concerns Among Republican Legislators

     From The Hill:

A group of House Republicans is making a rare move that would force a vote on a bill to reform aspects of Social Security, stirring unrest in the conference.

The bill at the heart of the push, also dubbed the Social Security Fairness Act, seeks to do away with the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO), a proposal that backers on both sides of the aisle argue is long overdue.

The bill enjoys support from more than 100 House Republicans, and almost four dozen have cosigned the effort to use what’s known as a discharge petition to force consideration of the bill — and the strategy is rubbing some in the conference the wrong way.

“In a well-run Congress, no legislator signs a discharge petition if you’re a majority. That is a rule that is never broken,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) told The Hill. “And the fact that 47 of my colleagues signed a discharge petition shows that we have an utter lack of discipline.” ...

Republicans say the matter was a topic of debate in a conference meeting earlier this week. ...

    Regardless of the House vote, it's very unlikely that this legislation will be voted on in the Senate.

...

WEP And GPO Bill Advances In House

      From Federal News Network:

Legislation to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset is nearing the finish line in the House.

Just over a week after it was filed, a discharge petition for the Social Security Fairness Act has reached the 218-signature threshold needed to force the bill to a floor vote.

Thirteen House lawmakers added their signatures to the petition on Thursday, after Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Garret Graves (R-Pa.) gathered advocates outside the Capitol building to urge their colleagues to push their legislation forward. …

Don’t get excited. This has no hope of passage in the Senate in this Congress.

Bill On Social Security And Identity Theft Passes House

     From a press release issued by the House Ways and Means Committee:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) will be forced to streamline their processes for Americans whose Social Security numbers (SSNs) have been compromised thanks to bipartisan legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. H.R. 3784, the Improving Social Security’s Service to Victims of Identity Theft Act, was introduced by Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Drew Ferguson (R-GA) and Ranking Member John Larson (D-CT) and was passed unanimously by the Ways and Means Committee. ...

[The bill] requires the SSA to provide victims of identity theft with a single point of contact at the agency when the misuse of their SSN results in the need to resolve an issue or issues with the SSA or when their Social Security card is lost in the mail. ...

"We Will Need Sufficient And Sustained Funding"

     From The Sacramento Bee:

Trying to get through to Social Security on its 800 number? Be very, very patient. Wait times have been averaging roughly 35 minutes. In September, the latest data available, the average time on hold was 34.7 minutes. The shortest average wait so far this year came in May, 28.8 minutes. The longest was in March, 39.8 minutes. ...

Reps. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, and Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, have introduced the “Stuck on Hold Act,” which would require the Social Security Administration and Department of Veterans Affairs, which has also experienced customer service issues, to tell callers the estimated wait times. If the wait is longer than 15 minutes, the agency would give the consumer the option of receiving an automated call back when it is their turn in line. The agencies would have up to a year to put the new system into effect. ...

At Social Security, “We are doing what we can to improve phone service,” said Darren Lutz, an agency spokesman, who cited the hiring of new phone agents ... . The agency has moved to a new phone system, which Lutz said “allows us to receive more calls and provides callers with estimated wait times, and will soon provide an option for some callers to receive a call back instead of waiting in a queue. “ Social Security plans more improvements, he said, though ”to improve our phone service we will need sufficient and sustained funding.“ ...

Support For Updating SSI

     From a press release:

In the latest sign of strong momentum for U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) bipartisan legislation to fix the Social Security Income program, the executives of the eight leading banks in the United States endorsed the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act. The legislation ... is the first bipartisan, bicameral bill to increase SSI’s asset limits and ensure disabled and elderly Americans can work and save for emergencies without putting at risk the benefits they rely on to live.  

During the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee’s annual hearing with the big bank executives, Brown described how SSI’s outdated eligibility rules lock beneficiaries in poverty and that his bill – co-sponsored by BHUA Committee member Sen. Rounds and already supported by JP Morgan Chase – would raise the asset limit. When asked if the executives would join in supporting the bill, each of them confirmed they supported the measure. ...

Introduced in September 2023, the bill is also endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Microsoft, Transunion, the Kroger Company, the Food Association, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, AARP, Bipartisan Policy Center, The Arc, National Association of Evangelicals, Faith and Freedom Coalition, Jewish Federations of North America, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, American Academy of Pediatrics, Autism Society of America, CEO Commission for Disability Employment, Cure SMA, Coalition on Human Needs, Justice in Aging, Muscular Dystrophy Association, National Down Syndrome Society, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Prosperity Now, Social Security Works, and nearly 300 other local and national organizations.  ...

Minor Social Security Bill Advances

    The description of a bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee:

The Clergy Act

Introduced by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (CA-20) and Representative Mike Thompson (CA-04), H.R. 6068 creates a window for clergy members to opt back into contributing to and receiving Social Security.

• Creates a time-limited, voluntary open season for members of the clergy to revoke their Social Security exemption and opt into Social Security coverage.
• Under current law, members of the clergy may apply for an exemption from paying certain taxes on income associated with the performance of ministerial services. The exemption also applies to receiving future benefits. Once the exemption is made, it currently cannot be reversed. Roughly 2,000 members of the clergy receive an exemption every year.

     If this advances, and I wouldn't bet on even such innocuous legislation advancing, it may attract amendments which would make it more interesting but which could also cause it to fail.

Bipartisan SSI Bill

     From a press release:

Today U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) announced the first bipartisan, bicameral push in decades to reform the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which has not been updated in nearly 40 years and currently punishes older and disabled Americans for saving for emergencies and their futures. The senators’ bipartisan SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act would update SSI’s asset limits for the first time since the 1980s to ensure disabled and elderly Americans are able to prepare themselves for a financial emergency without putting the benefits they rely on to live at risk.  

In addition to Brown and Cassidy, U.S. Representatives Brian Higgins (D-NY-26) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA-1) will introduce companion legislation in the House. U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bob Casey (D-PA), and James Lankford (R-OK) are original Senate cosponsors. ...

    Of course, the bill stands no chance in this Congress. The GOP controls the House and the GOP would filibuster in the Senate. Sorry, but there's nowhere near enough Republican support in Congress for this to advance. Maybe, maybe, I can squint at it and imagine the bill progressing after the 2024 election, but only if the Democrats have an overwhelming victory.

A Good Start

    From a press release:

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), today introduced legislation to remove a Social Security work disincentive for Americans with disabilities. ...

If an adult has a severe medical condition that began before age 22, they may be eligible for a Social Security benefit called the Disabled Adult Child (DAC) benefit. Their benefits are based on their parent’s Social Security earnings, in the same way that benefits of a child under age 18 would be. However, under current law some of these young adults fear that if they try to work they will lose future DAC benefits, which are often higher than any benefit they may qualify on their own. This fear inhibits the ability of Americans with disabilities to explore their ability to work as they transition to adult life.

The Work Without Worry Act promotes financial security by ensuring that any earnings from work – no matter how much – will not prevent an individual from receiving a Social Security DAC benefit from their parent’s work history if they have an eligible medical condition that began before age 22. ...

This change is estimated to improve the lives of nearly 6,000 individuals with disabilities over the next 10 years and would have no significant effect on the Social Security Trust Funds. ...

     Now, how about we do something about the marriage penalty that cuts off DAC if a recipient marries.

Two Bills Advance

     Yesterday, the House Ways and Means Committee marked up two minor bills that would affect the Social Security Administration in small ways. One would allow minors whose Social Security numbers have been compromised to obtain new Social Security numbers. The other would provide for a single point of contact at Social Security for those whose Social Security numbers have been compromised. I'm sure the first is debatable and the second is pointless without additional funding. 

    I wouldn't bet on either bill advancing in the Senate. If they do, you never know what might get added.

Debt Limit Extension Bill Would Apply Food Stamps Work Requirements To Those Applying For Social Security Disability Benefits

    From Pamela Herd writing on Substack:

...  SNAP [commonly known as Food Stamps] is a critical safety valve for people trying to access Social Security Disability programs — for which delays in benefit receipt can extend into years. The expansion in work requirements for this age group [as part of the debt limit extension bill just agreed to by the President and the Speaker of the House] seems innocuous, but they are highly consequential. Even those who dislike work requirements don’t fully understand the ramifications. ...

But wait!  Aren’t disabled people excluded from the work requirements?

Yes, but this is where administrative burdens matter. In order to prove you are disabled, you must become eligible for Social Security Disability, either Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income. But this process takes significant amounts of effort and time. ...

The net result is that it can take years to prove disability in order to access either SSDI or SSI, as well as now prove that you can’t meet the work requirements for SNAP. 

And the wait times have been steadily increasing. Between 2014 and 2022, average wait times rose from 106 days to 183 days. The average beneficiary now waits six months to access their benefit, and *prove* their disability.  ...

Third Rail Alert

     I generally don't post about the silly ideas that various Representatives and Senators have for Social Security legislation when there's no hope of passage or even of the proposal having an impact on Social Security legislation that may be passed at some indefinite time in the future. I'm making an exception for the latest utterance by Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. He's proposing that Social Security's guaranteed benefit payments should end, that Social Security benefits become subject to annual appropriations. This, of course, is going nowhere. I doubt that he could find more than one more Senator who would publicly agree with this or more than a handful of Representatives.  Senator Rick Scott, who has expressed his own absurd notions about Social Security, might agree with him. So why post about this nonsense? Senator Johnson is in a tight race for re-election against a Democratic opponent yet to be decided in a primary election. That race may determine control of the Senate in the next Congress. Johnson has touched the third rail of American politics. Here's hoping his audacity gets him the reward of spending more time with his family.

    By the way, Johnson argues that if annual appropriations are good enough for the Department of Defense, they should be good enough for Social Security. If Social Security were to receive the whooping budget increases that the Department of Defense has been receiving, Johnson's idea might not be so bad!

WEP And GPO Elimination Bill Makes Progress In House

      From Federal News Network:

… The Social Security Fairness Act, introduced by Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) and sponsored by Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) now has more than 290 co-sponsors, more than enough to force a House floor vote.

The bipartisan legislation would eliminate two provisions of the 1935 Social Security Act that reduce or eliminate the Social Security benefits of more than 2 million retirees.

One is the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), which reduces the Social Security benefits of local, state and federal retirees who worked in Social Security-covered employment — i.e. private-sector jobs — and also received a government annuity from their non-Social Security-covered government employment.

The other provision is the Government Pension Offset (GPO), which reduces the Social Security benefits of spouses, widows and widowers with pensions from a federal, state or local government job. …

     Spoiler alert: This stands little or no chance of passing the Senate in this Congress.

A Little Progress But So Far To Go

From Huffpost:

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) has won a key Republican ally in his quest to improve one of the most outdated social welfare programs in the United States.

This week, Brown joined forces with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) to announce their co-sponsorship of a bill updating the Supplemental Security Income program, which provides benefits to nearly 8 million Americans with disabilities. 

The program pays less than $700 per month for the average recipient meeting its strict eligibility criteria, which include a requirement that recipients have less than $2,000 in their bank accounts. The Brown-Portman measure, called the SSI Savings Penalty Elimination Act, would boost the asset limit from $2,000 to $10,000 for individuals and peg the limit to inflation.  ...

Getting the change into law, however, will be no easy task. Brown attempted unsuccessfully to hitch the measure to a big social spending bill Democrats tried to write last year, but Democrats omitted the proposal even before the bill collapsed. Its $8 billion cost is relatively small, but not exactly chump change, given current attitudes toward spending on Capitol Hill.

Having a Republican on board makes passage a bit more plausible. Brown and Portman said they would try to attach their bill to bigger pieces of legislation Congress may pass in the coming weeks. ...

The Brown-Portman bill would boost the limit to $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for married couples, eliminating the marriage penalty. Lankford said he would need to see the bill’s text, but that he had been interested in addressing the penalty for years.

Brown has pushed to boost SSI’s meager benefits and limitations on earned income as part of a broader bill but said he would take what he can get in partnership with Portman. ...

    Brown needs not just one but at least ten Republican votes to pass this as a stand-alone bill because of the filibuster in the Senate.  Unfortunately, the enthusiasm for this bill seems limited even among Democrats. I have no idea what bigger piece of legislation may be forthcoming that this could be attached to. I hope there is one. The enthusiasm in the House of Representatives also seems limited. Is the reason the enthusiasm is so limited a perception that since this is a poverty program that it must be primarily something affecting African-Americans? That notion is not only offensive; it's inaccurate. Most people getting SSI are white. However, the awful "welfare queen" prejudices die hard.

 

Legislation Passes To Help Ukrainian Refugees With SSI

Click on image to view full size

     A new Social Security Legislative Bulletin reveals that recent legislation passed to appropriate funds to help Ukraine in its struggle for survival also contains language concerning Ukrainian refugees and SSI. Those refugees will now be eligible for SSI if they otherwise meet its requirements and Social Security must not count the income and resources of their sponsors.

    Now, if this could also be done for other refugees!

WEP And GPO Hopes And Dreams

     From Federal News Network:

Congress — at least the House side of it — is closer than ever to giving the green light to repeal or reform WEP [Windfall Elimination Provision] and GPO [Government Pension Offset], the so-called “Evil Twins” that eat into, or eliminate, the Social Security benefits of hundreds of thousands of former government employees or their widows. ...

For decades, many whose Social Security benefits have been reduced by WEP or Offset have been pushing Congress to fix them. Backers of WEP and Offset say they prevent former feds under the CSRS retirement plan, and state and local government employees whose jobs were not covered by Social Security for most or all of their careers, from collecting higher benefits based on relatively short employment in a Social Security job. Backers of the laws say they prevent people from using what they call a “welfare tilt” in Social Security toward people with lower lifetime earnings, protecting the program from being ripped off by preventing “excessive” payments to government retirees/survivors who spent the minimal time paying into Social Security. Opponents say it was a cruel way to save money by denying some or all benefits to people who need it most, and that the former government people are the ones being ripped off when their benefits are reduced or simply wiped out. ...

John Hatton, staff vice president for policy and programs at NARFE [National Active and Retired Federal Employees association] said “While NARFE and organizations representing state and local retirees have built significant support for repeal of WEP and GPO over the years, securing floor voters in either chamber of Congress has remained out of reach, perhaps due to the likely costs of the repeal bills and projected solvency challenges for Social Security. But a recent rule change in the House of Representatives allows bills to bypass committee consideration if they receive 290 cosponsors. H.R. 82, the Social Security Fairness Act, which would repeal both WEP and GPO is up to 276 cosponsors, just 14 short of that mark. So we continue to push representatives to cosponsor the bill, and hope for some long-awaited progress on these issues.” …

    In other words, it's extremely unlikely to happen in the House of Representatives. Also, although this article doesn't say so, it's out of the question in the current Senate.

So, Wendell Primus Is The Problem?

      From The Intercept:

Democratic Rep. John Larson of Connecticut has written a bill titled“Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust” that would immediately expand the program’s benefits for all 65 million recipients. It has at least 200 co-sponsors, all Democrats, in the House. And increasing Social Security payments should be an easy lift for Democrats, especially in an election year.

Yet the bill still awaits a vote in the Subcommittee on Social Security — chaired by Larson — of the House Ways and Means Committee, much less a vote on the floor. Why?

Part of the answer appears to be Wendell Primus, a senior aide to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Primus is seen by many in the world of Washington, D.C., progressive politics as embodying a mindset from the Democratic Party’s past, when all that seemed possible was preventing cuts to important social programs, rather than going on offense.

Primus “passionately cares about children, he’s always made the point that we have to make sure that we’re taking care of the children,” Larson said in a recent appearance on The Intercept’s podcast Deconstructed. “Wendell’s concern would be that there’s only so much money to go around. We have only so many expenditures.” Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. …

According to Larson, Mark Meadows, former chair of the House Freedom Caucus and later chief of staff for former President Donald Trump, once told him that if his legislation “makes it to the floor, you’re going to find a lot of Republicans are going to be voting for [it].”

Social Security 2100 would then face a tougher challenge in the Senate. According to Senate rules, changes cannot be made to Social Security via the reconciliation process, which requires a simple majority. It would therefore need to attract the votes of all 50 Democratic senators as well as 10 Republicans to end a certain filibuster. …

Social Security Subcommittee Hearing

 

     Social Security 2100 is the pet bill of the Chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee. The bill has no hope of passage in the Senate in this Congress.

SSA To Be Responsible For Paid Leave Under BBB Bill

      The current version of the Build Back Better Act, the major budget reconciliation bill pending in the Senate, contains a major responsibility for the Social Security Administration. If passed , Social Security will be administering Universal Comprehensive Paid Leave. (Begins on page 1065). Claimants will be able to appeal from determinations made under this program but not to federal court. (Page 1081). I am somewhat confused about extra funding. At one point the bill indicates that Social Security will be given an extra $1.591 billion in the first year and an extra $1.5 bill a year thereafter to administer the program. (Page 1090). At another point, it indicates that there will be as much as an extra $2.5 billion. (page 1091). It's not clear to me whether as much as $2 billion of this may be expended for Social Security operations generally. It appears that this will be effective sometime in the current fiscal year -- at least that's when Social Security gets a big appropriation -- but I have been unable to find the exact date.

     This will be the first major new responsibility for the Social Security Administration since SSI was adopted in the 1970s. It comes at a time when the agency's staffing is at a low ebb and there are massive backlogs across almost all agency operations. Also, the agency is being directed by an Acting Commissioner.

Reason For Concern?

     I had posted yesterday that extending SSI to U.S. territories is part of the budget reconciliation bill pending in the Senate. Apart from the general threat of last minute snags on the bill as a whole, there is some reason for concern about the SSI part. The problem is arcane Congressional rules. Generally, any bill can be filibustered in the Senate. Budget reconciliation bills are a major exception. Those can't be filibustered. However, you can't put just anything in a budget reconciliation bill. One major rule is that no provision can be part of reconciliation if it would increase the deficit more than 10 years out. Generally, drafters of budget reconciliation bills get around this by including sunset provisions for budget reconciliation items that cost money. Extending SSI to the territories definitely costs money. However, the provision extending SSI to the territories contains no sunset provision (page 1682).

     I think this means that any Senator or Representative can object to the SSI provision. However, there may be some budget reconciliation exception that might cover this. I don't know. I'm no expert in Congressional rules. However, I'm not the only one asking the question.

    Would someone object? I'm not so sure. My guess is that this legislative provision is part of a settlement of litigation on the subject. I'd say that it's a reasonable settlement looked at from either a Democratic or Republican stance. I think the government's posture in the case pending at the Supreme Court is weak. Settling the issue in this way allows for a much better implementation of SSI for the territories. Doing it immediately as a result of a Supreme Court opinion would be a real mess.

     If someone objects, what happens then? Do they pull the provision altogether? Add a 10 year sunset? What is the deal, if there is one, with those litigating with the government on this issue. I don't know.

SSI Reform Probably Won't Be In The Budget Reconciliation Bill

      There's a summary out of the current "framework" for the budget reconciliation bill pending in Congress. There had been some hope that this bill would include at least some limited SSI reform but, alas, that's not listed. I guess it's still possible that there will be some really small bore SSI changes in the final bill in the category listed as "Equity and Other Investments" but as much as this has been whittled down, I wouldn't expect it.