Social Security is the cornerstone of financial support for millions of vulnerable individuals across the country. One of President Joe Biden’s final acts as the leader of this country was to sign into law the Social Security Fairness Act 2023. This provision would greatly benefit public sector workers who had previously not been allowed to reap their full Social Security benefits due to two other provisions that have since been eliminated.
As such, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has already started the adjustment process to millions of people’s benefits through use of an automated system that calculates each beneficiary’s newly increased benefit amount. As speedily as this roll out has been, it appears that only around 80% of the claims have been processed, leaving around 1 million more Americans in wait for their increased benefit.
Social Security Fairness Act hits bump
The Social Security Fairness Act is aimed at repealing the previous provisions of the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO). The impacted employees were mainly public sector workers such as firefighters, police officers, and teachers. Additionally, according to data from the Congressional Research Service, “women were also disproportionately affected, as 83% of those who suffered benefit cuts as a result of WEP and GPO were female.”
A retroactive payment of an average amount of $6,710 is also being made to the impacted parties dating back to January 2024. Unfortunately, as of the end of April, only two-thirds of the eligible beneficiaries have received their increased benefit payments. The Trump Administration has been rather efficient in adjusting the impacted cohort’s benefits and sending out the retroactive payments. The benefits will be increased by around $1,100 per month on average, however, this figure will differ from case to case.
As such, as of April 25, 2.3 million claims have been adjusted thanks to the SSA’s automated system that automatically adjusts each beneficiary’s claim for the more straightforward cases. For the more complex cases, however, the adjustments will have to be made manually by SSA employees hence the remaining one-third of beneficiaries who are still waiting to see a change in the claim amounts.
The SSA has shared that these complex cases are expected to be completed later this year, by early November. As such, beneficiaries should keep an eye out for any notices from the SSA to keep updated on the situation.
The Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset
The WEP and the GPO were two Social Security law provisions that were introduced sometime around 1980 with the goal of ensuring that public sector employees did not receive double the Social Security benefits when compared to other Americans since they would already be receiving a federal pension.
The GPO was directed at cutting cash amounts for widows and widowers who had already received pensions, whilst the WEP decreased benefits for those with disability benefits or a pension from their employer. Social Security tax was not withheld, however.
With the elimination of these two provisions as a result of the Social Security Fairness Act, around 3 million Americans can now look forward to increased monthly benefits, as well as a retroactive payment.
Missing funds at SSA
A recent post on Facebook by the SSA has revealed that the agency is still one month behind with the rollout of the new increased monthly benefits. Many beneficiaries are upset at the delay and have shared posts expressing this.
“Mine is coming thru. Have not changed anything,” one beneficiary remarked.
“Still waiting on my retro payment,” another added.
“Nothing changed for me,” stated a third.
Other beneficiaries also shared that the SSA was “not making it easy” to confirm the increase either. This matter is being worsened by the lengthy wait times faced by beneficiaries when trying to contact the agency. A disabled woman, for instance, was recently faced with a 120 minute wait time when telephoning the SSA only to then be told that her disability benefits application would only be reviewed 230 days from then.
This lack of service delivery can likely be attributed to the cutbacks within the agency that result in around 7,000 staff members losing their jobs.