Biden inks social security bill in rare public signing ceremony
President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that will increase Social Security benefits for millions of Americans — his first public bill signing ceremony in more than two years.
The Social Security Fairness Act will boost Social Security payments to more than 2.5 million retirees — some by as much as $550 a month — by changing the formulas used to reduce benefits for certain beneficiaries: those receiving foreign pensions, and those on government retirement plans for police officers, firefighters and teachers.
“Americans who have worked hard all their lives to earn an honest living should be able to retire with economic security and dignity,” Biden said before signing the bill at the White House. “The law that existed denied millions of Americans access to the full Social Security benefits they earn by thousands of dollars a year.”
Biden’s rare Sunday signing ceremony — likely to be the last of his presidency — marked the end of a long period of legislative powerlessness for a president who campaigned on his decades-long resume as a lawmaker.
Before Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections, Biden held White House ceremonies to provide COVID relief, establish Juneteenth as a federal holiday, expand veterans benefits, tighten gun control, build infrastructure and boost clean energy.
While Biden touted those legislative achievements in his aborted reelection campaign, bill-signing ceremonies became vanishingly rare in the last half of his presidency.
Bill-signing ceremonies can be a revealing but imperfect measure of a president’s legislative achievements. The president signs hundreds of bills a year, but most are routine and are signed in private. Biden quietly signed 48 such bills on Saturday, including ones to create a new government website, sell federal property and rename post offices.
That makes public ceremonies an indicator of which legislative achievements a president is proudest of. Presidents often use multiple pens to affix his signature so that he can hand them out as souvenirs
The Social Security bill, passed by the last Congress without visible support from the White House, received bipartisan majorities in both chambers: 327-75 in the House and 76-20 in the Senate. The White House announced only on Friday that Biden would sign it.
Biden’s 27 signing ceremonies are the fewest in any president’s first term since George H.W. Bush. President Donald Trump held 42 bill-signing ceremonies in his first four years, but also perfected the art of holding pomp-filled events to sign executive orders, memos and celebratory proclamations.
“We’re extending Social Security benefits for millions of teachers, nurses and other public employees and the spouses and survivors,” Biden said Sunday. “That means an estimated average of $360 per month increase.”
