What to know about the congressional push to expand Social Security benefits
The House passed legislation that would provide full benefits to millions.
WASHINGTON — The House has passed legislation that would provide full Social Security benefits to millions of people, pushing it one step closer to becoming law.
The Social Security bill on Tuesday won bipartisan support in the House, 327-75, in what is now the lame-duck period for Congress. The bill now heads to the Senate, where passage is not assured despite considerable support.
Here’s what to know about the legislation and what could happen next.
Decades in the making, the bill would repeal two federal policies — the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset — that currently limit Social Security payouts for roughly 2.8 million people, according to reports from the Congressional Research Service.
The policies broadly reduce payments to two groups of Social Security recipients: people who also receive a pension from a job that is not covered by Social Security and surviving spouses of Social Security recipients who receive a government pension of their own.
People who worked in state, local and federal government jobs have been heavily affected by the policies, as have teachers, firefighters and police officers, according to lawmakers and advocates.
Both provisions would be repealed by the bill, thereby increasing Social Security payments for many.
The budgetary effect of the legislation is considerable, adding an estimated $195 billion to federal deficits over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
That means more fiscal strain on the Social Security Trust funds, which were already estimated to be unable to pay out full benefits beginning in 2035. Some conservatives in the House attempted to block the
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