Joe Biden has signed into law a measure that boosts social security payments for current and former public employees – such as teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public-service workers – in what the White House has described as the first expansion of such benefits in 20 years.
“The bill I’m signing today is about a simple proposition: Americans who have worked hard all their lives … should be able to retire with economic security and dignity,” Biden said. “That’s the entire purpose of the social security system crafted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt nearly 90 years ago.”
The Senate voted last month to approve the Social Security Fairness Act, which advocates say rights a decades-old disparity, though it will also put strain on social security trust funds, which face a looming insolvency crisis.
The bill rescinds two provisions – the windfall elimination provision and the government pension offset – that limit social security benefits for recipients if they get retirement payments from other sources, including public retirement programs from a state or local government.
For the millions of Americans who watch the presidential inauguration every four years, the Lower West...
