Under two previous provisions, around 3 million Social Security beneficiaries had their benefits reduced or eliminated. In January, however, the Social Security Fairness Act was signed into law and as a result, the two provisions that caused beneficiaries to have reduced benefits were repealed. Subsequently, the impacted beneficiaries would now receive a bump to their monthly benefits to make up for the reduction. Additionally, retroactive payments will also be going out to the impacted individuals.
Initial estimates from the Social Security Administration (SSA) had November 2025 as a deadline for all cases to be adjusted. The recently appointed SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano, on the other hand, has been aiming to have all Social Security Fairness Act cases processed by July 1st.
Here is what you need to know if you are still awaiting your Social Security Fairness Act payment.
What is the Social Security Fairness Act?
On January 5th, 2025, former President Joe Biden signed into law the Social Security Fairness Act which then effectively repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). The WEP and the GPO impacted an array of public sector employees, such as teachers, firefighters, police officers, and certain federal employees.
Due to the WEP, certain public sector employees had their benefits reduced because alternate pensions had been provided to them by their employers and as a result, these employees were not required to make any Social Security payroll tax contributions. Furthermore, if the employee had paid into Social Security payroll taxes as a result of other employment, the reduction of benefits was still applied to them. The GPO also reduced survivor and spousal benefits for the cohort of public sector employees who had not contributed towards Social Security payroll taxes.
Now, thanks to the Social Security Fairness Act coming into effect, the 3 million or so impacted employees will now have their full benefits restored to them. In addition to this, the impacted cohort will also qualify to receive a retroactive payment. This retroactive payment will be a once off lump sum payment that can date all the way back to January 2024.
In a press release dated April 29, the SSA stated, “SSA has made significant strides in implementing the Social Security Fairness Act, having paid over $14.8 billion in retroactive payments to more than 2.2 million individuals affected by the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset. Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, the agency’s original estimate of taking a year or more to issue payments now will apply to only complex cases that cannot be processed by automation.”
How much will benefits increase by?
Benefit amounts differ from person to person due to various factors and as such, the amount by which each impacted beneficiary’s check will increase by will also vary. According to estimates from The Congressional Budget Office, “eliminating the GPO would increase monthly benefits by an average of $700 for 380,000 spouses and $1,190 for 390,000 surviving spouses. Eliminating the WEP would increase monthly benefits by an average of $360 for 2.1 million Social Security beneficiaries.”
The vast majority of impacted beneficiaries will have already seen an increase to their monthly benefits. As of June 30, over 99% of the impacted claims have already been adjusted. The previous Biden Administration estimated that this process would take over a year to be resolved, whilst the new SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano has been motivating employees to prioritize SSFA cases so as to have all outstanding claims processed by July 1st — and it appears that Commissioner Bisignano’s goal may just be achieved.
In a recent subcommittee hearing, Commissioner Bisignano said the following, “Yeah, as of this morning – it’s a number I track every day –we’ve done 99.9%. We have 3,100 more payments to get out the door. That’s it. 3,100. I thought it was very important to demonstrate that we can act with urgency. We did this without delaying any other work in the agency. We got together, we talked about it. It was multiple meetings. We applied technology to move it forward in a manner, better than we thought. And I think it’s what you should expect from us.”