Social Security eligibility remains tied to work history nationwide, with workers generally needing 40 credits to qualify for retirement benefits and facing reduced monthly checks if they claim before full retirement age. The latest proposal centers on unpaid caregivers, a group lawmakers say can lose both earnings and future benefits when they leave the workforce to care for relatives. A bill introduced in the Senate on April 29, 2026, would create new deemed wages for some caregivers, but it would not automatically change benefits unless Congress passes it.
Senate bill would add up to five years of deemed wages for some caregivers
The measure is the Social Security Caregiver Credit Act of 2026, introduced by Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, according to the bill text and Gillibrand’s office. The legislation would amend Title II of the Social Security Act to credit certain caregivers with deemed wages for up to 60 qualifying months, or five years, of unpaid care. Under current Social Security rules, workers generally need 40 credits, equal to about 10 years of covered work, to qualify for retirement benefits, and benefits can begin as early as age 62 with a reduction from the full retirement amount.
The bill defines a qualifying month as one in which a person provides at least 80 hours of unpaid care to a dependent relative. The bill text says those relatives could include a child under 12, or certain other family members who meet the law’s definition of a chronically dependent individual. For qualifying months, the proposal would deem wages at 50 percent of the national average wage index when the caregiver had no earnings, with a partial top-up when the caregiver had some earnings but below that level.
The proposal would apply to monthly benefits payable after December 2026, according to the bill text, if it becomes law. The Social Security Administration also says workers cannot receive retirement benefits without enough credits, and no one needs more than 40 credits for retirement eligibility.
Because Social Security is a federal program, the bill is national in scope rather than targeted to one state or city. Gillibrand’s office said 63 million American adults provide care to adults or children with a medical condition or disability, and many reduce work hours or leave jobs altogether at some point in their careers. That broader labor-force effect is central to the pitch behind the legislation.
What has not been publicly confirmed is the widely shared claim that the bill would let 40 percent of American workers collect full Social Security seven years early. The bill text does not use that figure, and the Social Security Administration material reviewed for this article does not verify a 40 percent share of workers gaining immediate access to full retirement benefits at age 62. Under current law, the SSA says workers can start retirement benefits at 62, but full retirement age is later, so claiming early usually means a reduced monthly benefit.
The legislation could help some people reach insured status sooner by adding deemed wages during caregiving gaps, but Congress has not released an official estimate showing exactly how many workers would newly qualify seven years early. The bill also requires the Social Security commissioner to write regulations and set documentation standards, including physician documentation in many cases, before credits could be awarded.
The bill’s backers say the problem is that unpaid caregiving can interrupt paid employment and reduce future retirement income. Gillibrand said caregivers who leave the workforce to care for loved ones should not be penalized in retirement, while the bill text is structured to fill in earnings records during those unpaid months. That matters because Social Security credits and benefit calculations are built from covered wages over time.
Separate SSA policy analysis helps explain why lawmakers are pursuing this approach. In a projection of a caregiver-credit option, SSA researchers estimated that a proposal crediting up to five years of caregiving at half the average wage would increase benefits for 12 percent of current-law beneficiaries age 60 or older in 2030, 26 percent in 2050, and 28 percent in 2070. Those figures describe projected beneficiaries seeing some increase, not workers collecting full unreduced retirement benefits seven years early.
For readers, the practical takeaway is that the bill has been introduced but not enacted, and current Social Security rules still apply. Workers still generally need 40 credits for retirement eligibility, can claim as early as 62 with a reduced benefit, and reach unreduced benefits only at full retirement age under current law. If Congress advances the caregiver bill, the next factual milestone would be committee action or a formal cost estimate showing how many people would qualify and when.