As president, Joe Biden has been consistent and clear that he would not cut Social Security benefits. 

But did he expand them, as he promised in his 2020 campaign? 

No.

In his final budget proposal, covering fiscal year 2025, Biden advocated improving Social Security benefits, "especially for those who face the greatest challenges making ends meet." But he provided no details, and as usually happens with presidential budget proposals, Congress ignored the proposal.

Biden's budget proposal also expressed a willingness to work with Congress on improving benefits for Supplemental Security Income, a Social Security program providing extra income for people with disabilities. But nothing concrete followed.

Lawmakers offered several bills to increase Social Security benefits during the second half of Biden's presidency, but none advanced. 

One bill, which had Senate and a House versions, would have increased benefits, including creating a new minimum benefit for certain low-wage earners. Other legislation would have changed the program's inflation-adjustment calculation in a way that could have benefited recipients. 

A different bill would have adjusted benefits based on the cost of living in the recipient's place of residence; another bill would have temporarily increased benefits for widows or widowers who had been in two-income households and would have allowed children of deceased, disabled or retired workers to remain eligible for benefits through age 25 if they were full-time students.

None of these bills progressed in either chamber.

We rate this Promise Broken.

It took 10 months after Joe Biden was inaugurated for Democrats to submit legislation on one of his key promises: to expand and increase Social Security benefits.

On Oct., 26, Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., introduced H.R. 5723, which includes many of the proposals that Biden outlined during his campaign. The measure had attracted 196 co-sponsors by mid-December, all of them Democrats, and on Dec. 7, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security held a hearing on the measure. 

The bill would not only expand benefits but would also address the issue of Social Security's long-term solvency, which is the subject of a separate Biden campaign promise. 

Some of the bill's key provisions on benefits are:

• An increase for all beneficiaries — whether they receive retirement, disability or dependent benefits — equivalent to an average of 2% of benefits, to make up for what the bill calls "inadequate" cost-of-living adjustments since 1983
• A new inflation adjustment formula that helps seniors who spend a greater portion of their income on health care and other necessities.
• A new minimum benefit set at 25% above the poverty line that would be adjusted to future wage levels.
• New caregiver credits to keep people from being penalized for taking time out of the workforce to care for children or other dependents.
• Extended eligibility for Social Security dependent benefits for students up to age 26, and for part-time students.

The measure has not formally advanced in the two months since it has been introduced, but its introduction is enough to move this promise to In the Works.