Sponsors (5)
Counts months of unlawful detention or hostage status as qualifying months for Social Security and assigns deemed wages for those months to raise benefit calculations.
Official title: Amend the Social Security Act to provide retirement security to United States nationals who were unlawfully or wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad.
Introduced February 20, 2025 by Christopher A. Coons · Last progress February 20, 2025
The bill helps unlawfully detained Americans (including retroactively) by crediting detention months toward Social Security benefits and adds a federal certification process to limit fraud, but it creates extra paperwork, excludes months after retirement age, and modestly increases program costs.
Seniors and other Social Security beneficiaries who were unlawfully detained or held hostage abroad will have those months counted as earnings (including retroactive months), likely increasing their benefit amounts or eligibility.
Qualifying individuals can receive retroactive credit for detention months beginning before enactment, improving benefit calculations for past cases and correcting prior underpayments.
Establishes a clear federal certification process (State Department or Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell) to verify qualifying detentions, which provides administrative clarity and reduces fraud or improper claims.
Beneficiaries must apply and obtain federal certification to count qualifying months, creating additional administrative burden and potential delays for seniors and families seeking benefits.
Months of detention occurring after an individual reaches Social Security retirement age are excluded, so older claimants detained later in life may not receive credit for those months.
Treating detention months as deemed wages will modestly raise Social Security outlays, which could slightly increase costs funded by payroll taxes or general revenues.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Treats months a U.S. national was unlawfully detained abroad or held hostage as "qualifying months" for Social Security benefit calculations, assigning each such month a deemed wage equal to one‑twelfth of the national average wage index for the second calendar year before the month — unless that rule would lower benefits. The Social Security Commissioner must issue regulations within one year with application and certification rules tied to existing federal determinations, and the change becomes effective 24 months after enactment.