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May 5, 2026 • 12:15 PM ET
The Social Security Caregiver Credit Act (H.R. 8490) was introduced in the House of Representatives on April 28, 2026, by Representative Bradley Scott Schneider, according to Congress records . The bill proposes to credit Social Security work records for years spent providing qualifying unpaid care for a child, elderly parent, or disabled family member. The bill has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee under current Social Security credit rules .
Fifty-three million Americans provide unpaid care for a family member. Most of them do not know that every year they spent caregiving instead of working is silently and permanently reducing their Social Security retirement benefit.
The Social Security Administration does not penalize caregivers by name. It applies the same formula to everyone: your benefit is calculated from your 35 highest-earning years. Every year you were not earning anything counts as zero. Five caregiving years out of a 30-year work history can reduce your lifetime Social Security benefit by hundreds of dollars per month, every month, from retirement until death.
A bill introduced April 28 would fix this. H.R. 8490, the Social Security Caregiver Credit Act, was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee and has not yet passed. But the underlying financial reality, the permanent penalty your earnings record carries today, is active right now regardless of the bill’s fate.
Understanding it, calculating it, and taking steps to minimize it starts at ssa.gov/myaccount. For how Social Security payments are disbursed once the SSA calculates your benefit amount, see the Social Security payments guide.
What the Social Security Formula Does to Caregivers Right Now
Social Security calculates your retirement benefit using your 35 highest-earning years from your complete work record. If you have fewer than 35 years with recorded earnings, the SSA fills every remaining slot with $0. Each zero year reduces your Average Indexed Monthly Earnings, which the SSA calls AIME.
Your AIME is the direct input into your Primary Insurance Amount, which is your actual monthly benefit. There is no exception for caregiving years. The formula does not distinguish between a year you chose not to work and a year you spent providing full-time care for a parent with dementia. Both count identically as $0. Source: Primary Insurance Amount.
Here is what that means in concrete terms. Suppose you worked for 30 years and earned an average of $55,000 per year. You then took five years out of the workforce to care for an aging parent. Your 35-year calculation now includes all 30 earning years plus five years of $0.
The SSA calculates the average across all 35 slots, applies the bend-point formula to arrive at your PIA, and sets your monthly benefit accordingly. That benefit is lower than it would be if those five years had any earnings at all. It will remain lower every single month for the rest of your life.
The average Social Security retirement benefit as of March 2026 is $2,079.49 per month, confirmed by SSA data. The maximum benefit at age 70 is $5,181 per month.
The gap between a benefit calculated with zero years and one calculated without them can be substantial, particularly for workers who spent multiple years as caregivers before accumulating 35 years of earnings. You can see exactly what your own earnings record shows, including every zero year, at ssa.gov/myaccount.
Navigate to your Social Security Statement and look at the earnings column year by year. Any year showing $0 that corresponds to a caregiving period is permanently reducing what you will receive. For how the SSA’s calculated amounts connect to the payment schedule you rely on, see payment schedule explained.
What H.R. 8490 Proposes to Fix and What It Does Not
H.R. 8490, the Social Security Caregiver Credit Act, introduced April 28, 2026, by Representative Bradley Scott Schneider, would credit qualifying unpaid caregiving years toward a worker’s Social Security earnings record. Under the bill, those years would no longer count as $0 in the benefit calculation. The bill targets care provided for a child, elderly parent, or disabled family member. Source: congress.gov.
The bill is in early stages. It has been referred to the House Ways and Means Committee, has no hearing date set, and has not been scheduled for a floor vote. Most bills introduced in Congress do not pass in the same session they are introduced. The 119th Congress runs through January 2027. If the bill does not advance this Congress, it would need to be reintroduced in the 120th Congress in 2027.
This is not a new policy idea. Similar proposals have been introduced in both Republican and Democratic Congresses over the past two decades without passing. What makes 2026 different is context.
The same Congress is simultaneously debating Social Security solvency, the TrumpIRA.gov retirement expansion, and the Saver’s Match. Retirement security has visible bipartisan support in the 119th Congress. Whether that translates to passage of H.R. 8490 specifically remains unknown.
The bill as introduced does not provide immediate protection for single caregivers currently out of the workforce. The existing spousal benefit provides partial protection for married caregivers. A spouse with lower or no earnings can claim up to 50 percent of the higher-earning spouse’s benefit at retirement, confirmed at ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/applying7.html.
This protection does not apply to single caregivers, divorced individuals married fewer than 10 years, or those whose spouse also has a low benefit. For how the 2027 COLA interacts with current benefit amounts, see the 2027 COLA projection and the COLA Medicare offset analysis.
How to Calculate What Your Caregiving Years Have Already Cost You
The SSA provides the tools to calculate what caregiving years have cost you, and most people have never used them. Your Social Security Statement, available at ssa.gov/myaccount, shows your complete earnings record year by year. Log in and locate every year where the earnings column shows $0 or a significantly reduced amount that corresponds to a caregiving period. Count how many of those years fall within your projected 35-year benefit window.
Then go to the SSA Quick Calculator at ssa.gov/OACT/quickcalc/. Enter your current earnings to get a baseline estimated monthly benefit. Then run the same calculation adding additional working years in place of zero years. The difference in estimated monthly benefit is the direct cost of your caregiving gap expressed in today’s dollars, paid every month from your retirement date onward.
The institutional reality is important to understand clearly. The SSA calculates every beneficiary’s benefit amount using the AIME and PIA formula confirmed at ssa.gov/oact/progdata/formulas.html. That calculation determines the amount.
The Bureau of Fiscal Service at Treasury then disburses the payments through the FedACH network to your bank account, the same infrastructure that processes all federal payments including tax refunds and Social Security. See Investozora’s money movement system for how that federal disbursement works. H.R. 8490, if passed, would only change the SSA’s calculation inputs, not the disbursement process itself.
If you currently have fewer than 35 earning years and are still working, there is an actionable path available right now without waiting for any legislation. Each additional year of paid work adds real earnings to your record and directly replaces a $0 with a positive number in your AIME calculation.
Even part-time work improves your projected benefit permanently. For context on what broader legislative changes to Social Security could mean for your long-term benefit amount, see the SSA 2032 benefit cut analysis.
What Happens Next for This Bill and What Caregivers Should Do Now
H.R. 8490 must clear the House Ways and Means Committee before it can advance to a full House vote. The committee has not scheduled a hearing as of May 5, 2026. Even after a hearing, markup and a full committee vote must follow before the bill reaches the House floor.
Then it must pass the full House, then the Senate, then be signed by the President. This is a multi-step process that typically takes months to years even when political momentum is favorable.
The retirement security environment in 2026 creates a more receptive political context than prior Congresses. But passage is not guaranteed, and the timeline for even an initial hearing is unknown as of publication. Track the bill’s status in real time at congress.gov. Any committee hearing date or vote will trigger a Live Update on this article.
The most important point for the 53 million Americans affected by this issue today is this. The formula penalty exists right now in your earnings record regardless of legislation. The steps to measure it, understand it, and partially mitigate it are available at no cost through the SSA’s own tools. Start today.
What You Should Do Now
- Log into your SSA account and review your earnings record. Look for any years with $0 that correspond to caregiving periods. Count how many fall within your projected 35-year benefit window.
- Use the SSA Quick Calculator to estimate how additional working years would improve your projected monthly benefit. The difference between your current projection and a projection with those zero years filled is the exact dollar cost of your caregiving gap.
- If you are currently in a caregiving role, document those years carefully. If H.R. 8490 passes, documentation of qualifying care periods will be necessary to support any retroactive credit claim.
- If you are married, review the spousal benefit provisions . Up to 50 percent of your spouse’s benefit may supplement your own reduced benefit if you have significant caregiving gaps in your record.
- Track H.R. 8490’s progress at Congress.gov . Any committee hearing date or vote will trigger a Live Update to this article.
Editorial Note: Investozora is an independent news publication. This content is for informational purposes only. For official guidance on Social Security benefits and your earnings record, visit ssa.gov.
