With the new Social Security Fairness Act coming into full effect, thousands of public sector workers who are recipients of Social Security benefits will now see an increase to their monthly benefit amounts. Additionally, the impacted cohort will also receive a retroactive payment dating back to January 2024.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) is still in the process of appropriately adjusting the claims of the impacted parties. As such, here is what you need to know about when the increased benefit amounts will begin rolling out.
The Social Security Fairness Act
On January 5, 2025, the Social Security Fairness Act was signed into law and effectively eliminated the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), as well as the Government Pension Offset (GPO). These two provisions, the WEP and the GPO had impacted public sector workers and eliminated a portion of Social Security benefits for around 2.8 million beneficiaries.
The impacted individuals were those “who receive a pension based on work that was not covered by Social Security (a “non-covered pension”) because they did not pay Social Security taxes,” as per the SSA. This referred to public sector workers such as teachers, firefighters, and police officers from several states, as well as federal employees who were covered by the Civil Service Retirement System. Additionally, those whose work had been covered by a foreign social security system also had their benefits reduced.
When will the new payment amounts come into effect?
As of February 25, 2025, the SSA began sending out retroactive benefit checks to those who had had their benefits reduced under the provisions of the WEP or GPO. The agency is also working to process the adjustments of the monthly benefits for those impacted going forward.
For impacted beneficiaries who are owed a retroactive payment as a result of the Social Security Fairness Act being signed into law, a once off payment will be deposited into the bank account of the beneficiary on file with the agency. This will have happened sometime around the end of March. This retroactive payment is meant to cover the increased benefit amount dating back to January 2024 which is the month when the WEP and GPO ceased to apply.
Since Social Security benefits are made with a monthlong delay, the majority of impacted beneficiaries will see an increase to the monthly checks as of April 2025, which will be for their March 2025 benefit.
How to know if your benefit amount has increased
As of April 2025, the SSA has confirmed that around 85% of the impacted beneficiaries have already had their benefits adjusted. The agency was able to streamline this process due to the automated system in use that calculates the new benefit amounts without having to take any other steps. The remainder of cases that still need to be processed are taking longer as they are more complex and will need to be manually adjusted by an agent, and as a result, the processing time will be longer.
“We are expediting these cases now. We are releasing retroactive benefits and sending new monthly benefit amounts as we process each case, with the expectation that all beneficiary records will be updated by early November 2025,” the agency stated.
Beneficiaries who qualify for the increased benefit and retroactive payments will have received a notice from the SSA explaining the changes and the retroactive payment. The amount by which the benefits will increase will vary from person to person in relation to the type of benefit they receive or their pension amount. As such, some recipients could see only a small increase to their benefits, whilst others could receive a monthly increase of over $1,000.
The SSA further stated, “A beneficiary may receive two mailed notices, the first when WEP or GPO is removed from their record, and a second when their monthly benefit amount is adjusted for their new monthly payment amount. They may receive the retroactive payment before receiving the mailed notice.”