WASHINGTON — Soon, the benefits of more than 3.2 million people who get Social Security and used to get pensions from jobs as teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public servants will go up. The agency says that most people will get their one-time payment for the past by the end of March. In April, they will start getting new monthly payouts.
The Social Security Administration said it would start processing back payments right away and send higher monthly payments to people who were affected by the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset. These rules were taken away by the bipartisan Social Security Fairness Act, which was signed into law last year by former President Joe Biden.
Some laws, like the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset, reduced people’s Social Security benefits if they already had retirement income from other sources, like state or local government public retirement programs.
Supporters say that the Social Security Fairness Act fixes a problem that has been going on for decades. However, it puts a lot of stress on the Social Security Trust Funds, which are about to go bankrupt.
In May of last year, the yearly report from the trustees of Social Security and Medicare said that starting in 2035, the program’s trust fund will not be able to pay full benefits. The new law will cut the program’s end date by about six months.
“Social Security’s aggressive plan to start making back payments in February and increase monthly benefit payments starting in April supports President Trump’s goal to get the Social Security Fairness Act into effect as soon as possible,” said Lee Dudek, acting commissioner of Social Security. “The people of the United States should get their benefits as soon as possible.”
People whose work had been covered by a foreign social security system will also benefit from the new rule. These groups include teachers, firefighters, police officers, and people from all over the country.
A statement from the Social Security Administration says that most people will get their one-time payment for back pay by the end of March. In April, they will start getting new monthly payments, which will be put into the bank account that Social Security has on file for them.
The Congressional Research Service said that the Government Pension Offset cut the payments of 745,679 people in December 2023. This was about 1% of all Social Security recipients. The Windfall Elimination Provision touched about 2.1 million people, or 3% of everything that was given out.
SSA tells people who are supposed to get delayed payments to wait until April to find out what’s going on with their payments, because some payments will be processed in stages through March.
It’s now a big political problem to talk about the future of Social Security. It was a big issue in the 2024 election. Social Security payments are given to about 72.5 million people, such as seniors, disabled people, and children.
