General Discussion

“We have spent decades working to pass this legislation, and tonight is a victory for all the public servants who will finally get the Social Security they have earned,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who was a lead co-sponsor of the bill. The bill marked Mr. Brown’s final legislative achievement, after he lost a brutal and expensive re-election bid last month.

“Tonight, Congress ensured that police officers, firefighters, teachers and public servants across Ohio will be able to retire with the Social Security they spent their lives paying into,” he said.

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a lead sponsor of the measure, framed the issue as a “long overdue” matter of fairness affecting teachers, firefighters and police officers as well as some federal employees who were hired before 1984, when the federal pension system was brought under the Social Security system.

In a floor speech Wednesday, Ms. Collins cited one of her constituents, a retired female schoolteacher who had to return to work at age 72 after her husband’s death to make financial ends meet. The woman’s husband was a Navy veteran who paid into Social Security for 40 years, but since she received a public pension from the school system, her surviving spousal benefits through Social Security were reduced by two-thirds.