Boosting Social Security Payments Tops Biden's Economic Priorities

In laying out his economic priorities, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, the former vice president, vowed to reject “every effort to cut, privatize or weaken” Social Security — including attempts to raise the retirement age, diminish benefits by cutting cost-of-living adjustments, or reduce earned benefits.

Biden’s 110-page economic manifesto, released after his visit to Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, called Social Security “the most enduring thread in our nation’s social safety net.”

Biden pledged to “enact policies to make Social Security more progressive, including meaningfully increasing minimum benefit payments, increasing benefits for long-duration beneficiaries, and protecting surviving spouses from benefit cuts.”

Democrats, Biden said, will also “act to protect public and private pensions” and “equalize the network of retirement saving tax breaks so that working people can build their nest eggs faster.”