Sponsors (3)
The bill protects retirement benefits for frontline health workers by excluding emergency-period wages from Social Security earnings tests, trading modest fiscal costs and added SSA administrative complexity — and some risk of narrow exclusions — for direct financial relief to affected workers.
Seniors and frontline health care workers/first responders who worked during covered public-health emergency periods can exclude those wages from Social Security excess-earnings calculations, preventing reductions and preserving monthly retirement benefits they would otherwise have lost.
Reduces the financial penalty risk for eligible frontline workers who earned extra wages during emergencies, helping preserve future retirement income and reducing hardship for those who took on extra shifts or hazard work.
Creates transparency and congressional oversight by requiring an annual report listing waivers issued, enabling legislative review of program use and potential abuses.
Taxpayers and the Social Security program could face modest increased outlays and slightly worse long-term trust fund projections because some excess-earnings reductions are reversed or waived.
Implementation requires SSA to verify attestations/evidence, adjust past benefit computations, and produce annual reports, creating administrative burden, short-term costs, and staffing needs for the agency.
Narrow eligibility rules and documentation/waiver requirements may leave some frontline workers who assisted during emergencies without relief if they cannot prove status or obtain approval.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Excludes certain wages earned by health care professionals and first responders from Social Security excess-earnings calculations (retroactive dates and during HHS-declared public health emergencies) and authorizes waivers.
Excludes specified wages earned by health care professionals and first responders from the Social Security retirement earnings test so those wages won’t reduce benefits. It treats wages paid from Jan 31, 2020 through May 11, 2023 as excluded for people who attest and provide evidence they worked as health care workers or first responders, and lets the Social Security Commissioner issue waivers and guidance for wages earned during HHS-declared public health emergencies when shortages of health care workers were identified.
Introduced December 9, 2025 by Glenn Thompson · Last progress December 9, 2025