In January, alongside ushering in the new year, millions of Social Security beneficiaries had then qualified to receive a retroactive lump sum payment and have their full benefits restored to them thanks to the Social Security Fairness Act officially being passed into law.
Whilst there are currently some 74 million beneficiaries to the Social Security program, a cohort of around 3 million retires public sector workers had been subject to reduced benefits under two now-repealed provisions. This group had their Social Security benefits cut due to the provisions of both the Government Pension Offset (GPO), and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) since the workers would have been receiving non-Social Security pensions from their employers.
Now that the GPO and the WEP have been repealed, these 3 million or so public sector retirees will now have their full benefits restored to them and as of the first week of July, the Social Security Administration (SSA) confirmed that all Social Security Fairness Act claims have been adjusted. Here is everything you need to know.
What is the Social Security Fairness Act?
The Social Security program has been running for close to a century now and over the course of the years, various changes were made or new provisions were included to the program so as to best maintain its financial stability — and the GPO and the WEP were introduced for precisely such a reason. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed into law the GPO in order to improve the finances of the program and as a result, the spouse or surviving spouse of a retiree who have a non-Social Security pension were reduced.
Fast forward to 1983 and in comes the WEP as passed into law by President Ronald Reagan which then reduced benefit amounts for public sector workers who received pensions covered by their employers (i.e. the government) but was not covered by Social Security. Returning to the present day, specifically December 21st, 2024, President Joe Biden then officially signed into law the Social Security Fairness Act, effectively repealing both the GPO and the WEP.
Subsequently, the impacted retirees became eligible to claim their full benefit amounts. In addition to having their full benefits restored, this group would also qualify for a one time retroactive payment dating back to January 2024 which is meant to cover the shortfall for all benefits paid after December 2023.
SSFA payout processing complete
When passing the Social Security Fairness Act into law, the former Biden Administration estimated that the task of adjusting all of the claims impacted by the new legislation would take a year to complete at the very least. The Social Security Administration, on the other hand, projected early November 2025 as a finish date for these cases.
A July 7th update from the SSA, however, revealed that all SSFA related cases had been successfully adjusted five months ahead of schedule. In the interim of the SSFA coming into effect and all related cases being cleared, Frank Bisignano had been appointed to the role of Commissioner at the SSA. At the time, Commissioner Bisignano had instructed employees at the agency to prioritize all SSFA cases, and even offered overtime to workers if they came in on weekends to work on adjusting the SSFA claims.
Subsequently, two months into his new role, all SSFA cases had successfully been cleared five months earlier than the agencies estimates. Since benefits are paid with a month’s delay, the impacted beneficiaries can expect to see a bump to their benefits starting in August. Following this, the SSA has shared that it has also received 278,000 new claims since the passing of the SSFA. Regarding the additional, new cases, the agency has further shared that it has “processed 92% of these new claims so far. If you filed a new claim after the law took effect, we may still be working to process your application.”
“If you have not yet filed a claim or are unsure if you have, you may need to apply. The date you apply can affect when your benefits start. The easiest way to apply for retirement or spouse’s benefits is online at www.ssa.gov/apply,” the agency also notes.