Wednesday, September 30, 2026 | Edition 197 | Item #2

We’re not sure that expanding eligibility for Social Security is in the cards given the well-known financial challenges facing the Social Security Trust Fund, but that did not stop Representative Haley Stevens (D-MI) from last week introducing a bill to lower the full retirement age to 60 for certain classes of workers involved in physical labor. .  Under the bill, dubbed the Blue Collar Social Security Fairness Act, the Social Security Administration would be tasked with coming up with a list of physically demanding jobs and updating it every three years. A point system would be created to credit workers based upon the number of years spent in those physically demanding jobs.

It’s not a trivial matter, both because the numbers are large (the Bureau of Labor Statistics classify 39.1% of the civilian workforce jobs to be physically demanding) and because we know that many blue-collar workers struggle with health and financial sufficiency as they age. 

The Stevens bill has been a hot topic of debate in the TNSB lunchroom (along with whether you should bring an iced coffee to a job interview) with some highlighting the heterogeneity of aging and the need to do more to help seniors at physical and economic risk and others contending that proposal would undermine the uniformity of Social Security, which has been one of its keys to success over the last century.  It’s worth discussing, but the timing of the bill couldn’t be worse, given that the focus needs to be on shoring up existing benefits and existing economics.