OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
1:32 PM – Friday, January 6, 2025
On Sunday, President Joe Biden signed legislation that he says will increase Social Security benefits for millions of retired Americans, including teachers, firefighters, and police officers.
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Almost 3 million public sector workers will be included in the “plan,” including government officials, police officers, firefighters, nurses, postal workers, and public school teachers.
Meanwhile, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is among the bill’s critics, argues that it will unjustly favor some workers while making things much more difficult for other Social Security recipients.
“Let’s be crystal clear: this bill would increase unfairness in how Social Security benefits are calculated,” Grassley said in a speech last month.
Other critics also argue that the law will endanger the Social Security fund as a whole. According to Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), the plan will expedite the process of future bankruptcy, asserting that the Social Security trust fund is less than ten years away from becoming bankrupt.
Biden announced the legislation at the White House.
“Americans who have worked hard all their life to make an honest living should be able to retire with economic security and dignity,” Biden announced before signing the Social Security Fairness Act, which he said would mean an “average monthly increase of $360 for more than 2.5 million Social Security recipients,” Biden stated. “That’s a big deal in middle-class households like the one I grew up in and many of you did.”
According to the president, those beneficiaries would also get an additional lump sum to make up for the 2024 benefit shortfall.
Just a few weeks before his presidency ends, Biden signed the new law, which was passed by the Senate on December 21st by a vote of 76–20 in the final hours of the 118th Congress. The bill, known as H.R. 82, was approved by House members in November.
The proposal will increase the federal deficit by an estimated $195 billion over a ten-year period, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Under the revised law, the benefits increase would take effect in December 2025.
Nevertheless, the “tremendous financial impact on the trust funds and the challenging [Social Security Administration] implementation procedures that will be required” are not addressed by the new law, according to Martha Shedden, president of the National Association of Registered Social Security Analysts.
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