A bipartisan quartet of senators introduced legislation that would task the Social Security Advisory Board with crafting a “base bill” to extend Social Security’s solvency.
Under the bill, introduced by Senators Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana; John Cornyn, R-Texas; Dick Durbin, D-Illinois; and Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, if the SSAB does not submit a proposal, the leaders of the majority party in both the House and Senate would need to introduce a base bill.
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Alternatively, any bipartisan pair of members from either chamber may introduce a bill to ensure at least 50 years of Social Security solvency. Additionally, the legislation would establish a new process for reviewing solvency every 10 years.
House members introduced a bill last month that would establish a new commission tasked with rescuing Social Security from insolvency. The House and Senate efforts follow the most recent Social Security Administration report that found the Social Security trust funds hold enough money to pay full benefits only through 2032. Without congressional action, benefits would have to be reduced by 22% after that year.
Research and experts agree that the most likely action to ensure future Social Security solvency would require either a reduction in benefits, an increase in taxes, or a mixture of the two. But the Senate legislation tasks an unexpected group—the SSAB—to draft the bill, says Jeffrey Brown, a professor of business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who served on the SSAB during former President George W. Bush’s administration.
“There’s no good way out of this that doesn’t impose real costs on real people, and that is politically difficult,” Brown says. “No one’s ever gotten elected to Congress by saying, ‘I’m going to cut benefits and raise your taxes.’”
The SSAB was created in 1994 primarily to serve as an oversight body to advise government officials on how to administer the program. According to its own website, the “board provides advice and recommendations to the President, Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on matters related to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs and policies.”
It is an unlikely vehicle to be tasked with solving a problem that has plagued U.S. politicians for decades, according to Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies Social Security reform.
“I support the bill to get reform discussions moving, but I do think that using the SSAB is inferior to appointing a new expert panel to propose Social Security solutions,” Biggs says. “The advisory board has never been used to propose Social Security reforms, and in fact, when I was nominated for the board several years ago, I was at great pains in the confirmation hearing to say that the board does not promote reforms.”
The SSAB can have up to seven members: three appointed by the president, two by the Senate and two by the House. Congress must split its picks between political parties, and the president must appoint one member of the opposite party. Terms are six years long, but they begin immediately upon the expiry of a previous member’s term, rather than upon the new member’s confirmation, meaning each member generally serves for less than six years.
Currently, the agency has four members, since all three of the slots for presidential picks are vacant, although that is enough to form a quorum.
Biggs was nominated by former President Joe Biden in 2024 as Biden’s lone Republican selection. Biggs says the SSAB is missing all of its presidential appointees because the “Senate refused to confirm them” despite hosting a hearing before the Senate Committee on Finance in 2024.
“I was one of that group,” Biggs says. “I’m not sure why a president would favor a Social Security reform process on which his own people and his own views would be unrepresented.”
President Donald Trump designated a new chair—House selection Amy Shuart—in November 2025 but has not nominated any presidential appointees.
According to Brown, relying on only four members is a concern itself, but the SSAB’s primary function and its limited staff would make it a difficult fit for the job.
Even if the SSAB or the commission proposed in the House bill drafted a bill, Congress would ultimately have to finalize a solution.
“There’s no getting around that members of the House and Senate are going to have to vote” on some legislation, Brown says.
