2.5 million Americans Were Once Denied Social Security Benefit: A New Law Changes That
Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper’s 15,000 members spent decades urging their Congress members to repeal a pair of laws that docked the Social Security benefits they’d earned because they also got pensions from their work as public employees.
On Jan. 5, the persistence of her members and others paid off when President Joe Biden signed legislation called the Social Security Fairness Act into law.
Cropper attended the White House ceremony, along with union leaders and Congress members from around the country, including former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Cleveland Democrat who introduced the bill in the Senate and bird-dogged its passage.
It passed the Senate last month by a 76 to 20 margin. Republican U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Cincinnati - who is about to become Donald Trump’s vice-president - was one of four senators who missed the vote.
“We thank President Biden and Sherrod Brown who has championed this cause in Congress for more than a decade and got the bill over the finish line for the president to sign it,” added a statement from Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga, who also attended the bill signing.