Millions of Americans Could Claim Social Security Early Under New Bill - Newsweek

Some Americans working in physically demanding jobs could claim full Social Security retirement benefits at age 60 under a new bill introduced in Congress.

Representative Haley Stevens, a Michigan Democrat, on Wednesday introduced the Blue Collar Social Security Fairness Act. The proposal would create an exception to existing Social Security rules for workers who have spent enough of their careers in physically demanding jobs, allowing them to receive unreduced retirement benefits seven years before the current full retirement age.

“Michiganders who work with their hands shouldn’t be forced to wait until their bodies give out to retire,” Stevens said in a statement to CNBC. “If we want to honor the dignity of work in this country, we need to lower the retirement age for physical laborers.”

Under current rules, retirement benefits can generally be claimed starting at age 62, but workers can receive up to 30 percent less than if they wait until their full retirement age of 67.

Newsweek has contacted Stevens' office for comment via email.

The proposal would create a separate route to full Social Security retirement benefits for people who have spent significant periods of their careers in physically demanding jobs. They would also avoid the permanent reduction that is normally applied when retirement benefits are claimed early.

The bill says jobs involving substantial physical demands that could reasonably be expected to reduce a worker's ability to continue doing physically demanding work at an older age would qualify. A worker would receive credit for a particular year only if they spent at least eight months of that year working in a qualifying occupation.

There would be two ways to qualify for benefits at age 60. One would be to accumulate 20 "base points": workers would receive one point for every qualifying year, meaning 20 years in physically demanding work would be enough.

Alternatively, a worker could qualify after reaching 15 age-adjusted points. Under that system, each qualifying year from ages 18 through 34 would be worth 0.5 points; ages 35 through 44 would be worth 1 point; ages 45 through 54 would be worth 1.5 points; and each qualifying year from age 55 onward would be worth 2 points.

That weighting means physically demanding work performed later in a person's career would move them toward eligibility for retirement benefits at 60 faster.

Stevens has cited construction, roofing, nursing and manufacturing as examples of the kinds of workers that the bill, if passed, would cover. Within a year of the bill becoming law, the Social Security Administration and the Labor and Health and Human Services departments would have to publish a list of occupations considered physically demanding and update it every three years.

The proposal could impact millions of workers across the country. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 29.1 percent of civilian workers were in jobs requiring a medium strength level, 6.2 percent were in heavy-strength jobs and 0.7 percent were in very-heavy-strength jobs in 2025. That’s 36 percent combined, or more than one in three workers covered by the survey.

Research has also found that physical work can become an obstacle to remaining employed into a person's 60s. An Economic Policy Institute and Schwartz Center analysis found that 31.6 percent of workers ages 55 to 64 were in physically demanding jobs, rising to 41.1 percent among those without a college degree.

The researchers defined those jobs as requiring "lots of physical effort" all or most of the time.

As the bill has just been introduced, it's too early to say whether it will have significant enough support to make it through Congress. But recent bills that change Social Security benefits have not always failed at the various legislative hurdles.

The Social Security Fairness Act, which repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset, both of which reduced benefits for millions of workers, passed the House 327-75 and the Senate 76-20 before being signed into law in January 2025. However, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she first introduced a version of that proposal with the late Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California in 2005, nearly two decades before it became law.

Financing the bill is also likely to come up in any debates, as the bill arrives at a time when lawmakers need to find a way to solve Social Security's looming financial crunch.

Social Security's 2026 trustees project that the retirement and survivors trust fund can pay full scheduled benefits until the fourth quarter of 2032, after which continuing revenue would cover 78 percent if Congress does not act. The combined retirement and disability funds are projected to cover full scheduled benefits until 2034.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton and Dave Siminoff.