David Camp, NOSSCR Senior Policy Advisor

A bill reintroduced this summer would eliminate the five-month DIB waiting period outright, the change most likely to reshape how you counsel clients on early-stage timing. It would also replace work-based termination with a gradual earnings offset and raise the representative fee cap substantially. The bill, H.R. 9519/S. 5042, the Social Security 2100 Act, was reintroduced by Rep. John Larson (D-CT) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT); Larson introduced the House version on June 29, 2026, with Blumenthal’s companion following in the Senate on July 21. Larson has introduced versions of this bill in nearly every Congress since 2014, and yet it has never received a floor vote. Solvency projections for the trust funds are back in the headlines this time, changing the political backdrop somewhat. Larson himself will not be the one carrying this fight forward: he lost his primary in Connecticut this cycle and will leave Congress at the end of this term. Whatever happens to this particular bill, any legislation that touches benefit formulas, agency staffing, or overpayment recovery deserves a close read from our members.

What the bill would do

This is a larger package than most summaries let on. Beyond the provisions disability representatives will care about most, it rewrites the representative fee cap, touches benefit formulas, and makes several changes to agency operations and overpayment recovery. For quick reference:

Disability practice: eliminates the five-month waiting period (Sec. 108); replaces work-based termination with a gradual earnings offset and adjusts Ticket to Work employment network payments accordingly (Sec. 109).

Representative fees: replaces the discretionary fee agreement cap with a mandatory, wage-indexed formula (Sec. 308). Yes, this bill addresses representative fees, and substantially so; it is covered in detail below.

Benefit formulas: merges the trust funds, raises the payroll tax cap above $400,000 in wages, sets the special minimum benefit at 125 percent of the poverty line, switches the COLA formula to CPI-E, adds a 2 percent across-the-board increase, and repeals WEP/GPO (again!).

Agency operations: a staffing floor pegged to January 2025 levels (Sec. 301); a field-office closure moratorium paired with permanent notice requirements (Sec. 302); new data-access safeguards with a private right of action (Sec. 303); a ban on the Commissioner holding another federal office (Sec. 306); and a return to mail as the statement default (Sec. 307).

Overpayments: codifies a 10 percent withholding cap for non-fault overpayments (Sec. 305).

Each is covered in turn below.

Eliminating the five-month waiting period

Of everything in this package, Section 108 is the provision we want members to notice first. It amends Section 223(a) so that disability insurance benefits become payable “for each month beginning with the first month during all of which the individual is under a disability and in which the individual becomes entitled,” eliminating the five-month waiting period, with a conforming change to the Section 223(a)(2) benefit computation that treats the individual as attaining age 62 in the first month of entitlement. Parallel amendments strike paragraph (5) in Section 202(e) and (f) and redesignate accordingly, eliminating the waiting period for disabled widow(er)s as well. The provision is not permanent as drafted: it applies only where the period of disability begins in a month in 2027 through 2036. Transition rules deem a waiting period already in progress as of January 2027 to end that December, and for anyone caught by the 2036 sunset, a new waiting period begins January 2037, running five months minus whatever elapsed in 2036. The waiting period has long been a source of hardship for claimants with no other income between onset and the start of benefits. A ten-year window without it would change how you counsel clients on early-stage timing and would affect protective filing strategy near the 2027 and 2036 boundaries.

Gradual offset for beneficiaries who work

Section 109 is the provision we expect our members working with employment networks and return-to-work clients to care about most. It has three moving parts:

Termination becomes medical-cessation-only. Section 223(a)(1) is rewritten so entitlement ends only “at the third month following the earliest month after the end of such period of trial work with respect to which such individual is determined to no longer be suffering from a disabling physical or mental impairment,” not on work activity itself. The extended period of eligibility and the 36-month rule disappear, work-related Medicare termination under Section 226(b) is eliminated, and expedited reinstatement under Section 223(i) is struck as no longer necessary once there is nothing left to reinstate from. Parallel amendments extend the same change to childhood disability benefits and disabled widow(er)’s benefits.

A dollar-for-two offset replaces the cliff. Section 223(e) creates a $1-for-$2 reduction on earnings above the SGA amount applicable to blind individuals, with no reduction before the third month after trial work ends and benefits never reduced below zero; auxiliary benefits are reduced proportionally.

Ticket to Work payments get a fix. Section 1148(h)(5) lets the Commissioner adjust employment network payment requirements as necessary to keep enough ENs available and to ensure beneficiaries have reasonable access to employment services, since a gradual offset upends the milestone-outcome structure those payments currently assume.

Like the waiting-period provision, this applies only to 2027 through 2036.

Benefit formula changes

The bill would merge the OASI and DI trust funds, raise the payroll tax cap above $400,000 in wages, set the special minimum benefit at 125 percent of the poverty line for a worker with 30 years of coverage, switch the COLA formula to CPI-E, add a 2 percent across-the-board increase, and repeal WEP and GPO (again!). Each of these affects benefit amount or trust fund mechanics rather than eligibility, but for clients on fixed, long-duration SSDI awards, the cumulative effect compounds meaningfully over time.

Agency operations

Title III deserves close attention, and it covers more ground than one paragraph can hold.

Staffing floor (Sec. 301)

Section 301 would require the Commissioner to hold SSA’s workforce at no less than its January 19, 2025 level, though the text contains no appropriation, deadline, or enforcement mechanism attached to that requirement; the chosen date is simply the day before the inauguration.

Office-closure moratorium (Sec. 302)

Section 302 would impose an immediate moratorium on closing or consolidating field offices, hearing offices, or resident stations, or on imposing any new access limitation, with an exception for temporary emergency closures:

Duration: runs until 180 days after the Commissioner submits a required report to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees; that report cannot be submitted before January 21, 2029, effectively extending the moratorium through the end of the current administration.

Report contents: closure-selection criteria, the burden on elderly and disabled people served, and cost-benefit methodology, including anticipated savings, replacement-service costs, and effects on employees.

Permanent notice rule (new Section 704(f)): for any future closure, consolidation, or access limitation, at least 120 days’ advance notice (direct mailing plus posting where practicable), a statement of how lost access will be replaced within 30 days plus how to reach SSA about resulting delays, and a further procedural step timed no earlier than 30 days after notice and no later than 45 days before the action.

Data-access safeguards (Sec. 303)

Section 303 adds three new subsections to Section 1106 plus a regulatory freeze. Subsection (h) bars political appointees and special government employees, the category that includes outside staff brought in under emergency hiring authorities, from beneficiary data systems: the Numident, the Master Beneficiary Record, the SSI Record and Special Veterans Benefits system, the National Disability Determination Services file, the earnings and self-employment income system, and anything else reachable through the Enterprise Data Warehouse.

The provision most likely to matter in practice is subsection (i), which creates a new private right of action for negligent unauthorized access or disclosure; current law only criminalizes disclosure. Key terms:

Damages: greater of $5,000 per act or actual damages, plus punitive damages for willful or grossly negligent conduct.

Fees and timing: attorney’s fees available against the government for a prevailing plaintiff; two-year discovery-based limitations period.

Exceptions: good-faith erroneous interpretation and individual-requested disclosures.

IG reporting (subsection (j)): the Inspector General must investigate and report every violation to Congress within 30 days, including a risk assessment and a description of any stopped payment during the unauthorized access.

Separately, the section locks 20 C.F.R. part 401 as it existed on January 19, 2025 into statutory force, insulating SSA’s current Privacy Act regulations from revision, and orders a GAO study within a year with monthly interim reports to the relevant committees.

Commissioner’s other offices (Sec. 306)

Section 306 would bar the Commissioner from holding any other federal office: “except as otherwise required by law, the Commissioner may not hold any other office or position in the Government of the United States.” The carve-out preserves duties other statutes impose on the office, such as trustee service.

Context: the provision targets the current arrangement in which the sitting Commissioner also holds a senior Treasury role.

Open question: the bill doesn’t say whether this would force an incumbent to divest, or bind only future appointees, though the present-tense language supports immediate application.

Mail as statement default (Sec. 307)

Section 307 would restore mail as the default method for Social Security statements, both on request and for the annual statement under Section 1143, making electronic delivery an affirmative yearly opt-in through a safe harbor rather than the default it has effectively been since SSA began suppressing most paper statements around 2011 in favor of the my Social Security online portal. It applies to statements required on or after January 1, 2027, and it is the one provision in this title that cuts against the agency’s digital-first direction, deliberately, on the theory that a digital default leaves workers without reliable internet access unserved.

Overpayment recovery

Section 305, titled “Claws off Social Security,” deserves its own paragraph because it would lock into statute a policy currently subject to reversal by any administration. It amends the Act’s overpayment-withholding provision so that for overpayments not believed due to fraud or similar fault, monthly withholding cannot exceed 10 percent of the amount otherwise payable, unless the individual requests a faster rate. This codifies the policy SSA adopted administratively in March 2024—the same policy the agency abandoned in 2025, first raising withholding to 100 percent, then to 50 percent.

Scope:

– Applies to Title II only (SSI already has its own 10 percent rule).

– Leaves waiver and reconsideration rights untouched.

– Applies to overpayments already outstanding on enactment: existing repayment arrangements above 10 percent would need to be reset.

– No sunset.

Representative fees

Section 308 is the provision our members have been asking us about, and it is a far larger change than the incremental fixes we have accomplished in recent years. Current law caps fee agreements at the lesser of 25 percent of past-due benefits or a dollar amount, set at $9,200 with annual cost-of-living adjustments under SSA’s 2024 rulemaking, itself the product of decades of Commissioner discretion built on a $4,000 base fixed in the 1990 statute.

Section 308 rewrites the last sentence of Section 206(a)(2)(A) to replace that discretionary mechanism entirely with an automatic statutory formula. For agreements entered into on or after enactment, the cap is the greater of:

– the prior year’s amount (a ratchet, meaning it can never decrease), or

– $4,000 multiplied by the ratio of the national average wage index for the second preceding year to the 1989 index, rounded to the nearest dollar.

Using the 1989 index ($20,099.55) and the 2023 index ($66,621.80), that yields roughly $13,258, well above the current $9,200 cap, and set to keep climbing with wages rather than prices.

Subsection (b) adds Section 206(a)(2)(A) to the list of provisions that use the Section 209(k)(1) wage index definition, and because Section 112 of this same bill amends

Conclusion

This bill is a very long list of ideas supported by NOSSCR. With Congressman Larson’s departure, we will need to continue our work on the Hill with a new champion. It will be interesting to see who picks up this challenge, and how these legislative updates progress either in standalone bills or within larger packages such as this.

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