A bill that that would deliver Social Security benefits to nearly three million workers has cleared a procedural vote in the Senate and is headed toward a vote of the full chamber, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday.

The Social Security Fairness Act, which would end provisions that reduce or eliminate Social Security benefits for people who also receive public pensions, already cleared the full House of Representatives on a vote of 327-75 in November and easily cleared its first Senate committee hurdle on Wednesday.

The legislation now requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate to send the bill to President Joe Biden's desk for his signature.

Retired teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public servants have been blocked from collecting all or part of their Social Security because of a pair of 1980s-era federal policies called the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset. These workers would be granted full benefits for the first time if the bill is signed into law. 

"We will vote on taking up the Social Security Fairness Act to repeal flawed policies that eat away at the benefits of those who've worked as teachers, firefighters, postal workers, or public sector workers,” Schumer said on the social media platform X on Thursday. “Retirees deprived of their hard-earned benefits will be watching closely."

The bill is sponsored by Louisiana Republican Rep. Garret Graves and has 330 co-sponsors. Graves said Thursday in a statement that it’s imperative for the Senate to send the legislation to President Biden before lawmakers’ lame duck session ends and the new Congress convenes in January.

“The Senate Majority Leader has called for a vote on our bill … more than 60 senators support our Social Security Fairness Act. The heavy lifting is done. The path to victory could not be clearer,” Graves said in a statement.

The lawmaker has estimated the windfall and pension offset provisions have likely taken $600 billion to $700 billion in benefits from employees, many of whom he says paid into the Social Security system.

The windfall and offset provisions also affect the widows or widowers of affected workers—survivors see either reduced benefits or perhaps none at all. If the two provisions are lifted, both primary employees and their surviving spouses could receive full Social Security benefits under the legislation.

The bill also seeks to correct the fallout for women, since some 83% of those impacted by the Government Pension Offset are female, according to Congressional Research Service data.

Critics of the bill, including some conservative Republicans, argue that it will hasten the bankruptcy of the Social Security trust funds, which are scheduled to run out of money in 2035 unless there are legislative changes made to the benefit levels, the retirement age when workers can receive benefits or the withholding taxes.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill will trigger trust fund bankruptcy six months earlier than Social Security trustees estimated in their most recent report.

Notably, Vice President-elect JD Vance, a conservative from Ohio, was among the 24 Republican senators who joined 49 Democrats to advance the measure on Wednesday. However, he did not participate in Thursday's vote.