Sponsors (3)
The bill shifts benefit calculations to better reflect older Americans' inflation and counts more high-end earnings toward future benefits—raising retirement payments and transparency for seniors but increasing federal costs, administrative burdens, and some complexity/uncertainty for workers, businesses, and other programs.
Seniors and current beneficiaries will likely receive larger monthly Social Security payments because COLAs would be calculated using a price index that reflects elderly spending patterns.
People first becoming eligible after 2025 (future retirees) will have more wages above the contribution base counted toward benefits, increasing their future Social Security payments.
Low-income SSI and Medicaid recipients will not lose program eligibility when COLA-driven benefit increases occur because those increases are excluded from income/resource tests.
Taxpayers and current/future beneficiaries face higher federal costs because larger COLAs and counting surplus earnings will increase Social Security outlays and put additional pressure on the Trust Funds and the federal budget.
Workers and small-business owners will face increased reporting and recordkeeping complexity because wages and self-employment income above the contribution base must be prorated and integrated into benefit calculations.
Implementing a new monthly CPI–E and related administrative changes will impose additional costs on BLS and SSA (and thus on appropriations/taxpayers) for setup and ongoing operation.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Creates a BLS CPI‑E to set Social Security COLAs and changes how earnings above the Social Security wage base are counted by applying an "applicable percentage" for years after 2025.
Introduced July 31, 2025 by Mazie Hirono · Last progress July 31, 2025
Creates a new Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers (CPI‑E) produced monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and directs that Social Security cost‑of‑living adjustments (COLAs) use that CPI‑E definition. It also changes how earnings above the Social Security contribution-and-benefit wage base are treated for payroll tax and benefit calculations by applying an "applicable percentage" to remuneration and self‑employment income above the base for calendar years after 2025, with the exact percentages set in a statutory table. The bill authorizes whatever sums are necessary for BLS to implement the CPI‑E and clarifies that increases under the new COLA rule are not counted as income or resources for SSI or Medicaid eligibility.