People hold umbrellas as they walk outside the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on July 9, 2026. Heavy rain and lightning battered the city on Thursday night.
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A bipartisan group of senators is introducing a bill to begin action on Social Security reform.
The PROMISE Act, which stands for Protecting Retirement Opportunities and Preserving Income Security for All, would establish a process to enact changes to Social Security, the more than 90-year-old federal program that provides benefits to more than 71 million Americans each month.
Social Security, a pay-as-you-go program that relies on trust funds to supplement payroll taxes when paying benefits, is facing an immediate funding shortfall. The program could pay only 78% of retirement benefits in 2032, according to the Social Security Administration Board’s annual report released in June.
Lawmakers have proposed several bills to address this problem, but few of them have been brought to a vote, according to the PROMISE Act proposal released Wednesday. The proposal would create a legislative process to consider these ideas.
Lawmakers introducing the bill include Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, and Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. Tim Kaine, Democrat, Virginia. Angus King, Maine. and Thom Tillis, RN.C.
“Social Security is the backbone of a secure retirement earned through a lifetime of hard work,” Durbin said in a statement. “But the longer Congress waits, the harder it will be to address the program’s funding shortfall.”
The move comes after four of those leaders, Cassidy, Durbin, Kaine and Tillis, issued a joint statement on June 10 calling for bipartisan action on Social Security following the release of the Board’s annual report.
“We say this to our colleagues: Do what we were elected to do, legislate hard issues, and protect this lifeline program for our children and grandchildren,” the senators wrote.
Mr. Durbin will retire at the end of his current term, while Mr. Cassidy lost his bid for re-election in the recent primary.
Cassidy told CNBC.com in June: “I want to get it done before I leave, so I have momentum to get it done.” Mr. Cassidy has what he calls “big ideas” on Social Security. It would create a separate investment fund for the program, modeled on changes enacted to the Federal Railroad Retirement System under President George W. Bush.
Other proposed changes include raising the retirement age and increasing taxes on high earners. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) recently co-authored an op-ed calling for eliminating the payroll tax cap, currently set at $184,500.
The 2026 trustee report predicts that the retirement trust fund could be depleted in the fourth quarter of 2032, three months earlier than previously predicted.
If its trust fund, Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI), is combined with the disability trust fund, the program could potentially pay out full benefits until 2034, at which point 83% of benefits would be paid.
At the same time, the report showed that the program’s 75-year solvency gap rose from 3.82% of payroll to 4.42%. As a result of the changes, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank, said that “Social Security’s fiscal outlook has deteriorated significantly.” CRFP is a supporter of the PROMISE Act.
Some experts say the impending depletion date poses risks to bond markets and the economy, and could lead to a fiscal crisis.
How the PROMISE method works
The PROMISE Act would create a procedure for initiating Congressional action on Social Security prior to the trust fund’s depletion date.
“Our bipartisan proposal will allow Congress to debate this issue in a transparent, fair, and bipartisan manner,” Durbin said in a statement.
It would task the Social Security Advisory Committee, an independent, bipartisan commission, with collecting public input and then sending the basic bill to Congress. Legal recommendations, if included, would require providing Social Security with at least 50 years of solvency.
The bases bill would be introduced by the majority leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives. If they don’t, other lawmakers might as well.
The base bill will now be sent to the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee for further consideration, hearings, and amendments.
It will then go to the Senate and House floors for 100 hours of deliberation, during which lawmakers could propose alternative amendments. The amendment must meet the 60-vote threshold in the Senate for adoption.
A final bill would also need at least 60 votes in the Senate.
The PROMISE Act would also create a 10-year solvency review process that would trigger the same floor procedure if a Social Security funding shortfall is anticipated.
The bill aims to clear the way for Congress to consider all serious Social Security proposals, according to a fact sheet. “It does not circumvent the regular order, predetermine policy outcomes or establish a finance committee,” the fact sheet says.
