The House of Representatives passed the Social Security Fairness Act on a 327-75 vote Tuesday evening, bringing the elimination of the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Public Pension Offset closer to reality than ever.

Social Security’s WEP and GPO have been around for decades. The two provisions diminish and in some cases even completely nullify.

The vote in the House of Representatives came after House Representatives Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Garret Graves (R-Pa.), the original co-sponsors of the reintroduced Social Security Fairness Act, filed a discharge request in September filed in an attempt to push the bill toward becoming law. to vote. About a week later, the petition reached the threshold of 218 signatures needed to get the bill to the House of Representatives.

The legislation will “provide a secure retirement for the hundreds of thousands of spouses, widows and widowers who are denied their spouses’ Social Security benefits simply because they chose careers in the service industry,” Spanberger and Graves said in a joint statement Tuesday.

Through decades of advocacy for a repeal of WEP and GPO, support for the legislation has continued to grow. The House version of the Social Security Fairness Act received 330 co-sponsors this year, making it one of the most supported bills in all of Congress.

The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, which has been pushing for the bill’s passage for years, said the legislation has never gotten this far.

“The overwhelming bipartisan support for the Social Security Fairness Act underscores the urgent need for this legislation, and with continued advocacy and support, we can create the necessary changes to protect the benefits of our nation’s retired public servants,” NARFE National President William Shackelford said in a statement.

Now the legislation faces the next hurdle: Senate approval. The Senate supplement to the Social Security Fairness Act currently has 62 cosponsors.

“We encourage Senate leadership to build on this clear momentum, bring our bipartisan efforts to a vote and deliver retirement security to Americans who have earned it,” Spanberger and Graves said.

Unlike the House of Representatives, the Senate has no procedure for discharge requests – the strategy Spanberger and Graves used to force the vote in the House.

“In the Senate we have the votes to defeat a filibuster, but it needs to be voted on,” said John Hatton, NARFE vice president of policy and programs. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin. “But someone could object to the procedure, which could cause a delay of about two weeks.”

Federal groups, such as the Federal Managers Association, are urging the Senate to consider the bill before the end of this Congress.

The legislation will “provide this long-awaited relief to public servants affected by the GPO and WEP,” FMA National President Craig Carter said in a statement. “It is time to relegate these provisions to the dustbin of history, for the good of all public servants who have been robbed of what they have earned for far too long.”

But at the same time, the Senate is facing must-pass legislation this year, including the National Defense Authorization Act and the 2025 budget legislation, that will likely consume a lot of lawmakers’ time and attention.

Hatton said the biggest challenge for the Social Security Fairness Act is “convincing Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and other members of the Senate that this is a priority that needs to be done now.”

Some members of Congress have also looked at alternatives to a complete repeal of WEP and GPO. A number of other bills aim to change the calculation of benefits rather than repeal the two provisions entirely. Supporters of these bills expressed concern that a complete repeal would impact the solvency of Social Security, while reforming the calculation would ensure “equity” between public and private sector workers.

If the Social Security Fairness Act passes, there will likely be another period of delay before it goes into effect for those affected by WEP and GPO.

“The whole thing turns into an operation that Social Security can do,” Hatton said. “But it is unclear how long the implementation will take.”

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