New Bill Could Give Stay-at-Home Parents Social Security Credit for Years Spent Caregiving

If you left the workforce to raise kids or care for a sick spouse or elderly parent, the current Social Security system essentially treats those years like they didn't happen. Zeros in the formula. Lower benefits when you retire. A financial penalty for doing something that most people would agree is essential work.

A new bill in Congress wants to change that.

The Social Security Caregiver Credit Act of 2026, introduced by Illinois Democrat Representative Brad Schneider, would allow people who stay home to care for children or dependent relatives to earn Social Security credits for up to 60 months — five years — of unpaid caregiving. Those years would count toward the benefit calculation instead of dragging it down.

"The Social Security Caregiver Credit Act would help ensure that people who step away from the workforce to care for loved ones aren't penalized in retirement," Schneider said.

How Social Security Benefits Currently Work

The math behind Social Security benefits is straightforward but punishing for caregivers. The formula uses your 35 highest-earning years. If you spent five years out of the workforce raising kids or caring for a family member, those years register as zeros — and zeros pull the average down significantly.

Someone who took five years off in their 30s to care for children and then returned to work can end up with meaningfully lower retirement benefits than a colleague who worked continuously, even if their careers were otherwise identical. The bill would fix that by replacing those zero-earning years with credited caregiving time.

Who It Helps

The bill covers more than just parents of young children. Anyone who stepped away from work to care for a disabled spouse, an elderly parent, or another dependent relative would qualify — as long as they haven't yet reached retirement age when those caregiving months end.

Grandparents caring for grandchildren can also qualify under the bill's current language, with the same retirement age limitation applied.

In 2021, an estimated 11 million people in the United States were staying home with their children. A Pew study from the same year found 18 percent of parents overall weren't working for pay — with a significant gender gap. Twenty-six percent of women were stay-at-home parents compared to just 7 percent of men. More recent data from Motherly found nearly 38 percent of Gen Z moms are currently staying home — a number that reflects just how unworkable childcare costs have become for younger families.

Schneider pointed to that reality directly. The cost of childcare or in-home care is "simply out of reach for many American families." Half of Gen Z moms and 50 percent of millennials have considered leaving the workforce entirely because of childcare costs, according to Motherly's 2025 State of Motherhood survey.

What It Would Take to Pass

The bill currently has two co-sponsors — both Democrats. Getting it through both chambers of Congress would require Republican support, which is where things get complicated.

The most likely argument against it is the one nobody in Washington loves saying out loud but that is nonetheless real — Social Security is already facing a significant long-term funding shortfall. Expanding benefits to a new category of recipients costs money the program doesn't currently have. That tension between what's fair and what's financially sustainable is the wall this bill will have to clear.

Several countries — Germany, Canada, and Sweden among them — already offer pension credits for caregiving years as a matter of policy. The United States remains an outlier on this front.

Whether this particular bill goes anywhere or not, the underlying problem it's addressing isn't going away. Millions of people — mostly women — are retiring with lower Social Security benefits because of years spent doing work that nobody paid them for. That's the quiet consequence of a system built around wage labor in an economy that has always depended on unpaid care.

Curious for more stories that keep you informed and entertained? From the latest headlines to everyday insights, YourLifeBuzz has more to explore. Dive into what’s next.