Safeguarding American Families and Expanding Social Security Act of 2025
Sponsored By: Senator Brian Schatz
Introduced
Summary
Strengthening retirement security. This bill would rewrite how Social Security counts and prices work earnings to boost benefits for lower earners and to change how pay above the payroll tax and benefit base is taxed and credited.
Show full summary
- Retirees with low and middle lifetime earnings would get higher benefits because the bill overhauls the primary insurance amount (PIA) formula. The new PIA would raise the benefit shares for lower-earning years and explicitly fold surplus earnings into benefit calculations.
- Workers who earn above the current contribution and benefit base would see those extra dollars treated differently for taxation and for benefit credits. The bill creates a surplus earnings framework that reweights how above-base earnings contribute to benefits and taxes.
- Cost-of-living adjustments for beneficiaries would be set using a newly defined Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers (CPI-EC). The Bureau of Labor Statistics would publish that index and the bill includes year-by-year schedules and phase-in timings to implement the changes.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 0 costs, 1 mixed.
Higher Social Security benefits for retirees
This bill would change how Social Security benefits are calculated to raise some monthly checks. The first PIA bend point would be set at $6,300 for people first eligible in 2026 and then rise with wages for later eligibles, with extra percentage increases for people first eligible after 2030. For people first eligible after 2030 the lowest PIA factor would increase from 90% to 95%. The bill would also add a new PIA term equal to 5% of a person's surplus AIME for people first eligible after 2030. The Social Security Administration would recompute PIAs set before January 2026 by scaling a specified PIA component (using the 6,300/6,002 ratio) with rounding rules and a protection that keeps the higher original PIA if the recomputed amount is lower.
Lower Social Security tax on extra earnings
This bill would reduce how much of your earnings above the Social Security wage base count as taxable for Social Security purposes starting after 2025. The applicable share would be 80% in 2026, then drop by 20 percentage points each year in 2027–2029, and be 0% in 2030 and later. The rule applies to wages paid in calendar years after 2025 and to self-employment net earnings for tax years that start after 2025.
New price index for seniors' COLA
This bill would require the Bureau of Labor Statistics to create a monthly Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers starting for months ending on or after June 30 of the year the law is enacted. If enacted, the Social Security Commissioner would use that new CPI‑EC to compute cost‑of‑living adjustments for benefits for quarters ending on or after September 30, 2026. Whether your COLA would go up or down would depend on how the new index compares with prior measures.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Brian Schatz
HI • D
Cosponsors
There are no cosponsors for this bill.
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
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