Keep Billionaires Out of Social Security Act
Sponsored By: Senator Bernie Sanders
Introduced
Summary
Insulate the Social Security Administration from political interference and fund its operations. This bill would limit political appointee access to beneficiary systems, require career-led internal offices, and create new funding for customer service and grants.
Show full summary
- Keeps SSA field office presence and staffing at January 1, 2025 levels and limits closures. It requires maintained live-operator access, improved phone metrics within 12 months, expanded online applications, and codifies overpayment recovery of up to 10 percent of a benefit or $10 per month.
- Creates grant programs for disability advocacy and local assistance. It authorizes $25.0 million for State protection and advocacy grants for FY2026–2030 and $15.0 million per year for FY2026–2030 to fund at least 10 community grants annually, with minimum awards of $500,000 and required beneficiary representation on governance boards.
- Restructures SSA governance and funding rules. It removes SSA from Department of Government Efficiency oversight, restricts political access to beneficiary data with civil and criminal penalties, reestablishes three Deputy Commissioner-led internal offices, sets an annual appropriation formula equal to 1.2 percent of specified benefit payments beginning FY2026, requires Medicare administration funding from HI and SMI trust funds, and creates a $2.0 billion Customer Experience Fund for FY2026–FY2035 while excluding SSA administrative costs from certain budget enforcement calculations.
*The bill would authorize significant new administrative spending and dedicated funding mechanisms and would change how SSA administration is counted in federal budget enforcement.*
Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
10 provisions identified: 8 benefits, 1 costs, 1 mixed.
Keep local Social Security offices open
This bill would require SSA to keep at least the same number of field and hearing offices as of January 1, 2025. Offices could close only for short emergencies or relocations. SSA would have to improve phone wait, callback, and service times within 12 months and keep staff at or above 2024 levels. Online applications and direct-deposit changes must be accessible.
Stronger privacy rules for SSA data
This bill would bar political appointees and special government employees from accessing SSA systems that hold Social Security numbers or personal data, except SSA staff who work to improve benefits. It would create civil damages (at least $5,000 per improper access) and allow punitive damages in serious cases. Willful official disclosures could bring fines, prison, dismissal, and Inspector General and GAO reporting.
More stable SSA funding and budgets
This bill would set a steady annual SSA administrative appropriation beginning in FY2026 equal to 1.2% of defined benefit payments. It would establish a $2 billion Customer Experience Fund for FY2026–FY2035 for IT, backlog reduction, and online services. It would also stop counting certain Social Security trust fund flows and some program-integrity costs in official budget totals starting October 1, 2025.
Higher monthly overpayment recovery rules
This bill would let SSA reduce a person's monthly Title II benefit by the greater of 10% of the benefit or $10 to recover overpayments for determinations made on or after March 25, 2024. The rule would not apply if the overpayment was due to fraud. A person could elect to waive the 10%/$10 rule and ask for a larger recovery instead.
Limit moving SSA jobs out of civil service
This bill would limit excepting SSA positions to certain schedules and require employee consent for transfers. During any four‑year presidential term, no more than 1% of SSA employees or five employees may be moved from the competitive service. OPM must report annually and issue implementing rules.
New internal offices to oversee SSA
This bill would create three new SSA offices led by career Deputy Commissioners: Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity, Transformation, and Analytics, Review, and Oversight. They would enforce civil-rights rules, guide modernization, and help detect and prevent fraud.
Grants for community disability help
This bill would fund at least 10 grants each year from FY2026 to FY2030 to help people with disabilities apply for Title II and Title XVI benefits and navigate appeals. Each grant must be at least $500,000 over five years. The program would be authorized $15 million per year.
State legal help for disability claimants
This bill would pay State protection and advocacy systems to help people with disabilities apply for and appeal Social Security benefits. Each State system would get at least $200,000; certain territories would get at least $100,000. The program is authorized $25 million per year for FY2026–FY2030.
Higher proof before listing someone dead
This bill would require clear and convincing evidence before SSA marks someone as deceased in its records. If SSA records a death in error, it would have to notify other agencies that share data with SSA.
Remove outside control over SSA
This bill would bar the Department of Government Efficiency from overseeing SSA and exempt SSA from several named Executive Orders. This changes who supervises SSA but does not by itself change individual benefit rules.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Bernie Sanders
VT • I
Cosponsors
Ron Wyden
OR • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Charles Schumer
NY • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Richard Blumenthal
CT • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Kirsten Gillibrand
NY • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Tina Smith
MN • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Elizabeth Warren
MA • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
John Reed
RI • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Andy Kim
NJ • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Edward Markey
MA • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Angus King
ME • I
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Peter Welch
VT • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Amy Klobuchar
MN • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Christopher Coons
DE • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Tammy Baldwin
WI • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Mazie Hirono
HI • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Alex Padilla
CA • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Richard Durbin
IL • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
John Hickenlooper
CO • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Chris Van Hollen
MD • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Jeff Merkley
OR • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Sheldon Whitehouse
RI • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Timothy Kaine
VA • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Ruben Gallego
AZ • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Michael Bennet
CO • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Cory Booker
NJ • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Patty Murray
WA • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Mark Warner
VA • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Angela Alsobrooks
MD • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Martin Heinrich
NM • D
Sponsored 9/10/2025
Raphael Warnock
GA • D
Sponsored 9/16/2025
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
View on Congress.govRelated Bills
S1503 — Equality Act
Treat sexual orientation and gender identity as forms of sex discrimination across federal law. The bill would explicitly add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal sex‑discrimination protections and apply those rules across many statutes and programs.
S2150 — Women’s Health Protection Act of 2025
Guarantee nationwide protections for a person's right to obtain abortion services and a provider's right to deliver them. The Women's Health Protection Act of 2025 would create a federal rule that stops laws and rules that single out abortion or place heavier burdens on abortion than on similar medical procedures. It defines key terms, protects pre-viability care, allows post-viability care to protect life or health, and explicitly protects interstate travel and the movement of medicines, equipment, patients, and providers. - Families and patients: Would protect access to abortion before viability and allow post-viability care when needed to protect life or health. It would bar medically unnecessary in-person visit rules and stop forced disclosure of why a patient seeks care. - Health care providers: Would protect providers' ability to give abortion care including by telemedicine and across state lines, and would forbid facility, staffing, testing, or disclosure requirements that are not required for similar procedures. - States and interstate commerce: Would preempt conflicting state laws and recognize a right to travel and to assist others in getting reproductive health services across state lines. - Courts and enforcement: Would let the Attorney General sue and would create a private right of action so patients and providers can seek injunctive relief and attorney's fees. It would limit state sovereign immunity where federal law allows challenges.
S2523 — John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2025
This bill would restore and strengthen federal voting-rights protections by rewriting Section 2, creating a practice-based preclearance process for certain election changes, and boosting transparency and enforcement. - Voters in racial, language-minority, and Tribal communities would gain broader legal standards to challenge discrimination. The bill would add distinct Section 2 tests for vote-dilution, vote-denial, and intentional discrimination and add a retrogression standard that applies to actions taken on or after 2021. - State and local election officials would face new preclearance and public-notice rules. Covered changes like election methods, redistricting shifts, ID rules, polling-place moves, and voter-list removals would need review before implementation and require pre-election notices 30 days before Federal elections with 48-hour updates. - The Department of Justice and private citizens would get stronger tools to enforce rights. The Attorney General would centralize observers, extend bilingual protections to 2037, seek preventive relief, issue pre-action information demands, and pursue expanded court remedies.
S1115 — Paycheck Fairness Act
Stronger enforcement against sex-based wage discrimination. This bill would tighten legal remedies, expand pay-data reporting, and fund training and grants to help close persistent pay gaps between men and women. - Workers: Would expand protections so employees can discuss pay without retaliation and pursue compensatory and, for willful misconduct, punitive damages. It also narrows the employer "bona fide factor" defense so pay differences must be job-related and business-necessary. - Employers: Private firms with 100 or more employees would face new pay-data reporting requirements by sex, race, and ethnicity and public disclosure of aggregated results by industry, occupation, and metro area. - Federal contractors and agencies: The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs would restart and expand contractor pay surveys and must annually select not less than half of nonconstruction contractor establishments to report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics would continue tracking women in its employment survey. - Training, grants, and outreach: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and OFCCP must receive training funded by appropriations. A new competitive Negotiation Skills Training grant program would fund entities to teach pay negotiation and report on outcomes.
S51 — Washington, D.C. Admission Act
This bill would admit the District of Columbia as the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, giving its residents full congressional representation. It would also carve out a separate federal 'Capital' around core federal buildings and set a staged transition for courts, services, and federal property. - Residents: District residents would gain two Senators and one Representative immediately upon admission and the current non‑voting Delegate office would be repealed. - Territory and federal limits: A defined Capital area including the Capitol, White House, Supreme Court, and adjacent federal lands would remain under U.S. title or jurisdiction and generally would not be subject to state taxation except where Congress permits. - Courts, justice, and transition supports: The bill would keep federal prosecution support, U.S. Marshals services, pretrial and public defender arrangements, and Bureau of Prisons housing rules during transition; it would provide a temporary Federal Medical Assistance Percentage uplift for five years and establish an 18‑member Statehood Transition Commission to oversee the change.
S3214 — Background Check Expansion Act
Would require background checks for most private firearm transfers by routing them through licensed dealers. This bill would create a new transfer framework that makes it unlawful for two unlicensed people to complete a firearm transfer without a licensed importer, manufacturer, or dealer first taking possession to run the check and comply with federal transfer rules. - Private sellers and buyers would have to route most sales through a licensed importer, manufacturer, or dealer who would take possession to run the background check and follow all transfer requirements. - Licensed importers, manufacturers, and dealers would be required to provide a notice of the prohibition and collect a certification on a form prescribed by the Attorney General before completing a transfer. - Close family and estate transfers would be exempt, including transfers between spouses, domestic partners, parents and children, siblings, aunts or uncles and nieces or nephews, and grandparents and grandchildren, and transfers by operation of law to executors or trustees. - Temporary and specific transfers would be exempt in narrowly defined situations. These include short-term transfers to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm, transfers approved under the tax code, and transfers that occur only at a shooting range or for hunting, trapping, or fishing while the transferor is present and has no reason to believe the transferee is prohibited. - Transfers to law enforcement officers, armed private security professionals acting within official duties, and members of the Armed Forces acting in their official capacity would be exempt. - The bill's amendments would take effect 180 days after enactment.
Take It Personal
Get Your Personalized Policy View
Create a free account to save research, track policy impacts, and unlock your personalized versions of these pages.
Already have an account? Sign in