Sponsors (11)
Official title: Enhance Social Security benefits and ensure the long-term solvency of the Social Security program.
Introduced February 27, 2025 by Bernard Sanders · Last progress February 27, 2025
The bill raises benefits and provides more elderly-targeted inflation adjustments and student protections—boosting income for many retirees, low‑earners, and students—while shifting costs onto higher earners and investment income and imposing administrative and solvency pressures that could lead to higher taxes or future benefit changes.
Millions of current and future retirees and disabled beneficiaries will receive higher monthly Social Security benefits because bend points are raised, PIAs will be recomputed where applicable, and a new guaranteed minimum tied to the poverty guideline raises baseline payments for low earners.
Social Security COLAs tied to an elderly-focused CPI–E will better reflect seniors' spending patterns and likely produce larger inflation adjustments for beneficiaries.
Workers with earnings between the existing Social Security base and $250,000 will gain Social Security coverage on that additional pay, increasing future benefit calculations for those workers.
The benefit increases (higher bend points, bigger COLAs, and a raised minimum) will raise Social Security outlays and materially increase long-term solvency pressure on the trust funds, potentially leading to higher payroll taxes or future benefit cuts.
Employees and employers will face higher payroll tax liabilities on earnings between the current base and $250,000, reducing take-home pay for higher‑wage workers and raising employer labor costs.
Expanding the investment surtax and applying it more broadly to business-related interest, dividends, rents, royalties, and gains could sharply raise taxes for many small-business owners, pass‑through shareholders, retirees, and investors, reducing after-tax returns and increasing tax bills.
Based on analysis of 16 sections of legislative text.
Increases Social Security benefits and minimums, adopts CPI‑E for COLAs, extends student benefits to age 22, merges trust funds, and raises taxes on higher wages, self‑employment income, and net investment income.
Raises and reshapes Social Security benefits and funding rules while simultaneously increasing several taxes on higher-income individuals and investment income. The bill boosts key benefit formula factors and minimums (including a new work‑year floor tied to poverty guidelines), adopts the CPI–E for cost‑of‑living adjustments, extends dependent-child coverage through age 22 for students, and merges the OASI and DI trust funds into a single Social Security Trust Fund. At the same time it expands the Social Security payroll tax base up to $250,000 in years when the statutory wage base is below $250,000, changes self‑employment tax computation, and sharply raises the Net Investment Income Tax rate and its base. These changes take effect on different timetables (largely beginning 2026 or the first taxable year after enactment). The package increases benefits for many beneficiaries, raises projected Social Security receipts, and shifts tax burdens toward higher earners and certain investment and business income, while adding implementation requirements for the Social Security Administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Treasury/IRS reporting and transfers.