"Little by little things would come out where, ''it's gonna come'...I'd get excited then I'd say don't get too excited, then I'd hear nothing," says Charlotte Smith of Hubbard.

After more than a decade of wondering if she'd ever see the pension her late husband Homer earned in his career at Delphi, Smith is letting herself believe.

"I am so excited!" she says.

Late Wednesday, the House passed the Susan Muffley Act.
The measure would restore those pensions in full plus 13 years of backpay and interest.
Smith and more than 5,000 other Ohioans had only been getting a small fraction of it, if any at all.
After GM went bankrupt in 2009, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation gave full benefits to hourly workers, but not salaried workers like Homer Smith.

"That was very hard," says Charlotte, whose husband passed in 2011. "I have more or less had to keep working just to try to keep up with not even quite the lifestyle we would've had if he'd had a regular pension."

The bill now heads to the Senate where it has bipartisan support.
President Biden said he'll sign it.
For Charlotte Smith - a long overdue payoff and a symbol of her late husband's lasting legacy.

"I don't even want to think about what it would be or should be that they owe us because I think it's far beyond anything I could imagine," she said. 

Wednesday night, US Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said in a statement “It’s past time to restore full retirement benefits for thousands of Ohioans – and tens of thousands of Delphi Salaried Retirees across the country. I’ve been fighting for them since 2009. I’m glad to see this bipartisan, bicameral legislation pass the House. Now the Senate must do its job, pass this bill and send it to the President.”