Senate passes bill to boost Social Security benefits for some

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

64% : The Senate voted overwhelmingly in the early hours of Saturday to pass legislation to boost Social Security benefits for more than 2 million Americans.
48% : "Shouldn't we care about the future of Social Security.
47% : "She highlighted the plight of teachers in Maine who worked their whole careers in the public sector under a state retirement system that did not include Social Security and as a result received a fraction of the Social Security benefits earned by spouses who worked in the private sector after they died.
47% : Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), the bill's Democratic sponsor, said the legislation would help bus drivers, teachers and cafeteria workers in the public schools system.
45% : The bill, the Social Security Fairness Act, will repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), enacted in 1983, which reduces the Social Security benefits of workers who receive government pensions not covered by Social SecurityIt will also repeal the Government Pension Offset, enacted in 1977, which reduces benefits for spouses, widows and widowers whose spouses receive public sector pensions.
45% : "He argued the bill would "force" the 96 percent of the workforce that contributes to Social Security to "subsidize overly generous benefits for the 4 percent of the workforce, those who do not participate in social security and instead contribute to noncovered pensions.
44% : Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) talked about his former high school civics teacher, Ms. Betty, who saw her husband's Social Security benefit cut to a fraction of what she expected because she spent her life working in public schools.
33% : "You can't just push the bankruptcy of Social Security and say, 'Well, yeah, it will go bankrupt in about nine years
29% : "Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), another fiscal conservative, argued that WEP was enacted to "fix serious problems in how Social Security benefits were calculated," asserting that prior to it individuals with mixed careers in the public and private sectors often received more in Social Security benefits than they were entitled to receive.

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