A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill on Tuesday designed to shore up Social Security’s finances in the coming decades and prevent future benefit cuts for the 70 million Americans who rely on the program.
The bill comes after last month’s annual Social Security trustees’ report projected that the program’s retirement trust fund could become insolvent by 2032, earlier than initially forecast. If that occurs, it would trigger a 22% across-the-board benefit cut, unless Congress acts before then, the report found.
The legislation, called the Promise Act, would not itself raise taxes, reduce benefits or change eligibility. Instead, it would direct the bipartisan, seven-member Social Security Advisory Board to draft a bill, informed by public input, to keep the program’s trust funds solvent for at least the next 50 years.
“Congress has known about this challenge for more than a decade, but it has not taken up these politically challenging issues,” Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois and one of the sponsors of the bill, said in a statement. “And the longer Congress waits, the more difficult it will be to address this issue in the future.”
Any proposal developed by the advisory board would be introduced in the House and Senate by congressional leaders before being considered by committees, which could hold hearings and revise the legislation. To become law, it would need a three-fifths vote in the Senate and a majority vote in the House.
The Promise Act’s additional sponsors include Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana; Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia; Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina; and Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine.
The measure is one of several pathways legislators could take to save Social Security, which is facing a looming funding shortfall as spending for the program outpaces income. Members of Congress have introduced legislation in the past to address the insolvency issue, but none have gained enough traction to pass, according to Durbin’s office.
A separate estimate released in June by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an advocacy group focused on fiscal issues, found that beneficiaries could see their monthly checks cut by hundreds of dollars if the trust fund reserves are depleted.
Several policy groups, including the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Progressive Policy Institute, welcomed the legislation, saying it could help advance a bipartisan solution to Social Security’s long-term funding challenges.
“The Promise Act should be commended for not only offering one possible mechanism to fast-track bipartisan solutions that are long overdue through regular order, but also creating a recurring check-in to discourage policymakers from getting this close to a similar cliff again in the future,” Ben Ritz, vice president of policy development for the Progressive Policy Institute, said in a statement.