On September 9, U.S. Representatives Linda Sanchez and Mike Honda of California introduced the Strengthening Social Security Act of 2016. The law is designed to ensure that the Social Security Trust Funds have the money needed to pay out benefits for the next several decades and to increase Social Security benefits for future retirees.

The Strengthening Social Security Act would increase benefits for everyone receiving Social Security. It also adopts a method for adjusting Social Security benefits up that is in line with price increases in the basket of goods that older adults typically buy. The Consumer Price Index used today does not reflect the fact that older adults spend a disproportionate amount on health care relative to younger people and health care prices are rising at a faster pace than other goods.

Under the Strengthening Social Security Act, widows and widowers would receive a level of benefits at least equal to 75 percent of the amount they received before their spouses passed away.

The legislation funds all of these benefit expansions, and bolsters the Social Security trust funds, by phasing out the payroll contribution cap so that the wealthiest Americans pay the same rate into Social Security as the rest of us.

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