The new Social Security bill in Congress isn’t one bill but several. One major change already became law in January 2025: the Social Security Fairness Act, which restored benefits for millions of public-sector retirees. Beyond that, the two most-watched pending packages are the Social Security 2100 Act in the House and the Social Security Expansion Act in the Senate, both of which would raise payroll taxes on high earners while increasing benefits. A narrower measure, the We Can’t Wait Act of 2026, targets the disability program’s five-month waiting period.
What Already Became Law in 2025
The Social Security Fairness Act was signed on January 5, 2025. It repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset, two rules that had reduced or eliminated Social Security benefits for people who also received a pension from work not covered by Social Security.1Social Security Administration. Social Security Fairness Act: Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) Update
The Windfall Elimination Provision had applied a less generous benefit formula to workers who split their careers between Social Security-covered and non-covered jobs. The Government Pension Offset had reduced spousal and survivor benefits for anyone drawing a non-covered government pension. The two provisions affected more than 2.8 million teachers, firefighters, police officers, and federal employees under the older Civil Service Retirement System.
The repeal is retroactive to benefits payable from January 2024. By mid-2025, the Social Security Administration had issued more than 3.1 million payments totaling $17 billion to eligible beneficiaries. If you receive a non-covered pension and have not seen an adjustment yet, the agency is still working through cases.
The Social Security 2100 Act
Introduced by Representative John Larson, the Social Security 2100 Act is the most prominent expansion package in the House. It would:
- Reapply the 12.4 percent payroll tax to earnings above $400,000, leaving a “donut hole” of untaxed earnings between the regular cap (currently $184,500 for 2026) and that new threshold.2Social Security Administration. Contribution and Benefit Base
- Switch the annual cost-of-living adjustment from the current index to the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, which gives more weight to medical costs and generally produces higher annual increases.3Social Security Administration. Latest Cost-of-Living Adjustment – Section: How Is a COLA Calculated?
- Provide a benefit boost equivalent to roughly 2 percent of the average benefit for current and future recipients.
- Set a new minimum benefit at 25 percent above the federal poverty guideline and tie its future growth to wages rather than prices.
The Social Security Expansion Act
Senator Bernie Sanders leads the Senate companion effort. The Social Security Expansion Act reaches further on the revenue side than the House bill.4Congress.gov. S.770 – Social Security Expansion Act Its main provisions:
- Reapply the payroll tax starting at $250,000 in earnings rather than $400,000.
- Extend a version of the net investment income tax to high earners and apply it to certain business income. This would be a structural first: Social Security has always been funded exclusively by taxes on wages and self-employment earnings, never on investment income, rental income, or capital gains.
- Combine the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund with the Disability Insurance Trust Fund into a single reserve.
The We Can’t Wait Act of 2026
Senators Susan Collins and Maggie Hassan introduced this narrower bill to address the five-month waiting period that Social Security Disability Insurance applicants face before their first payment.5Social Security Administration. Proposals to Change Social Security Under current law, applicants receive no benefits during that gap. The bill would let them elect a reduced payment during the waiting period instead of going without income entirely.
Other Ideas Circulating in Congress
Several proposals move independently of the two large packages and could end up folded into any eventual compromise.
Raising the Payroll Tax Rate
The 6.2 percent employee-and-employer rate has not changed since 1990. One option modeled by the Social Security Administration’s actuaries would raise the combined rate by 0.1 percentage point per year starting in 2027, reaching 13.4 percent by 2036.6Social Security Administration. Provisions Affecting Payroll Taxes For a worker earning $50,000, that adds roughly $50 per year during each year the rate rises.
Raising the Full Retirement Age
Full retirement age is currently 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later.7Social Security Administration. Benefits Planner: Retirement – Born in 1960 or Later Some proposals would phase it up to 69 over about a decade starting in 2026.8Social Security Administration. Provisions Affecting Retirement Age The change functions as a benefit reduction: claiming at 62 would carry a steeper early-claiming penalty, and workers would need two more years on the job to collect the same monthly amount. Workers in physically demanding jobs bear the heaviest cost, because delaying is not always realistic.
Switching to a Chained CPI
The reverse of what the Social Security 2100 Act proposes. Switching the annual adjustment to the Chained Consumer Price Index would produce slightly smaller increases each year on the assumption that people substitute cheaper alternatives when prices rise. The savings compound over a retiree’s lifetime, meaning someone claiming at 62 would see a noticeably smaller monthly benefit by 80 than under the current formula.
Changing How Benefits Are Taxed
Up to 85 percent of your Social Security benefits can be subject to federal income tax, depending on your “combined income” (adjusted gross income plus nontaxable interest plus half your benefits).9Internal Revenue Service. Social Security Income The thresholds triggering taxation have not moved since they were set in 1983 and 1993:
- Single filers: 50 percent of benefits become taxable at $25,000 combined income; 85 percent at $34,000.
- Married filing jointly: 50 percent at $32,000 combined income; 85 percent at $44,000.10Internal Revenue Service. IRS Reminds Taxpayers Their Social Security Benefits May Be Taxable
Because these thresholds are frozen, inflation has pulled millions of middle-income retirees into benefit taxation who were never intended to pay it. Several bills would raise the thresholds or index them going forward. Revenue from benefit taxation flows back into the trust funds, so any such change would need to be paired with other revenue measures.
Why Congress Is Under Pressure
The 2025 Trustees Report projects that the retirement and survivors trust fund will be depleted by 2033, at which point incoming payroll taxes would cover only 77 percent of scheduled benefits.11Social Security Administration. Trustees Report Summary Combining the retirement and disability funds pushes the exhaustion date to 2034 with 81 percent of benefits payable.12Social Security Administration. Social Security Board of Trustees: Projection for Combined Trust Funds One Year Sooner than Last Year The Disability Insurance fund on its own is projected to stay solvent through 2099.
Depletion does not mean the program disappears. Payroll taxes keep coming in, and checks keep going out. But without legislation, every recipient would face an immediate automatic cut of roughly 19 to 23 percent when the reserves run out. That prospect is what keeps reform bills moving.
Why Passage Is So Difficult
Federal law bars Social Security changes from the budget reconciliation process, the fast track that lets certain fiscal bills pass the Senate with a simple majority.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 2 USC 644 – Extraneous Matter in Reconciliation Legislation Any senator can raise a point of order against a Social Security provision in a reconciliation bill, and overriding that objection takes 60 votes. The practical result: no Social Security reform can pass without significant bipartisan cooperation, which is why none of the pending bills has moved to a floor vote despite years of debate. As the 2033 and 2034 depletion dates approach, the pressure to negotiate will grow, and whatever eventually passes will likely combine pieces of several bills rather than mirror any single one on the table today.