Sponsors (16)
This bill tightens which past wages count toward Social Security/Medicare—improving program integrity and legal clarity for administrators and taxpayers, but reducing credit for unauthorized or off-the-books work and imposing administrative and fiscal costs that mainly affect immigrants, low-income workers, employers, and SSA operations.
Taxpayers and the Social Security/Medicare systems will be less likely to pay benefits based on wages earned while a worker lacked authorization, reducing improper benefit credits.
The Social Security Administration will have clearer statutory rules about which wages and self-employment earnings count toward benefits, reducing disputes and interpretation uncertainty.
Some beneficiaries could see higher recalculated Social Security benefits because recomputation applies the bill's wage/self-employment rules to past and future earnings, potentially increasing benefits for affected workers.
Immigrants who worked while unauthorized may lose Social Security credits for those periods, reducing their future benefit eligibility or benefit amounts.
Low-income workers paid off-the-books, and people who later legalize status but worked without authorization earlier, could lose credits and face lower future Social Security benefits, increasing reliance on safety-net programs.
Determining historical authorization status, handling reclassification disputes, and recomputing benefits will create administrative burdens and transitional costs for SSA and may impose compliance or dispute costs on employers, potentially delaying claims processing and other services.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Excludes wages and self‑employment income earned while an alien is not authorized to work in the U.S. from Social Security credit and directs recomputation of benefits.
Removes wages and self‑employment income earned by aliens who are not authorized to work in the United States from being counted as "employment" or as a "trade or business" for Social Security credit and benefit calculations. Directs the Social Security Administration to recompute primary insurance amounts to implement the change, and makes the amendments apply to earnings before, on, or after enactment while limiting benefit effects to months after enactment.
Introduced February 10, 2025 by John Moolenaar · Last progress February 10, 2025