Sponsors (2)
The bill substantially strengthens and broadens guaranteed, inflation‑protected, tax‑free death and funeral benefits and clarifies payment processes for survivors—providing more immediate support to families—while raising federal costs, straining some agency budgets, and creating administrative and distributional tradeoffs.
Survivors of federal employees, service members, and veterans will receive larger, guaranteed, inflation‑adjusted, tax‑free death and funeral payments (including a $100,000 death gratuity and an $8,800 funeral payment), preserving real value and increasing immediate financial relief.
More frontline and public‑safety federal workers (e.g., FAA, TSA, certain VA/VHA staff) and personnel who die abroad are explicitly covered, and the bill clarifies beneficiary order and a signed witnessed form so survivors are identified and paid faster.
Agencies have an authorized mechanism to provide supplemental disaster/terrorism‑related payments and clearer authority for supplements, enabling quicker agency responses when costs exceed available funds.
Taxpayers and the federal budget will face higher outlays and slightly lower revenues from these larger, indexed, and newly tax‑exempt payments, which could increase deficits or crowd out other spending priorities.
Agencies are required to use salaries‑and‑expenses appropriations to make gratuity payments, which could reduce funds available for agency operations or force reprogramming of existing resources.
Net payments to some survivors may be reduced because the gratuity/funeral payments are offset by other federal benefits or U.S.‑funded program payments, lowering the actual additional support for those receiving multiple benefits.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Creates a $100,000 CPI-indexed federal death gratuity, raises funeral pay to $8,800 with annual COLAs, makes payments tax-exempt, and authorizes emergency supplemental funding for agencies.
Official title: To provide and expand gratuities for employees killed in the line of duty, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 9, 2025 by Gerald E. Connolly · Last progress May 9, 2025
Creates a permanent, government-wide death gratuity program and raises funeral-payments for Federal workers killed in the line of duty, updates related Foreign Service and military death-pay rules, makes those payments tax-free, and allows emergency supplemental appropriations for agencies when deaths from disasters, terrorism, or other incidents create costs beyond available funds. It sets a $100,000 base federal death gratuity (with annual CPI-U adjustments), raises funeral expense payments to $8,800 (with automatic annual COLAs), and aligns priority beneficiary rules and offsets across several statutes.