The Social Security Administration (SSA) has announced that it could take more than a year to fully implement the recently enacted Social Security Fairness Act. The law, which was signed by President Joe Biden, aims to boost benefits for approximately 3.2 million retirees and spouses by eliminating the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). The WEP reduced Social Security benefits for retired federal workers who had also spent part of their careers in the private sector, while the GPO reduced spousal and survivor Social Security benefits for families of retired government workers.
The repeal of these provisions was made retroactive to January 2024, affecting around 2 million retired public servants and 750,000 spouses and survivors. Despite the positive impact of the law, the SSA has cautioned that due to current funding constraints and an ongoing staffing shortage, it could take at least a year to adjust the benefits for all affected individuals.
Ssa faces delays in benefit adjustments
The agency is currently operating at a 50-year staffing low, and the manual, case-by-case nature of the required adjustments adds to the complexity and duration of the process. “Processing these changes is very complex and SSA’s analysis shows that much of the work must be done manually, on an individual case-by-case basis,” the agency stated. SSA is currently processing pending or new claims involving future benefits and developing procedures and automated solutions for computing retroactive benefits.
The SSA has advised those affected by the GPO to file applications for survivor benefits if they had not already done so and to ensure their mailing address and direct deposit information are up to date.
The agency is committed to assisting some affected beneficiaries now, but due to budget constraints, it expects the complete adjustment and payment of all retroactive benefits to extend beyond one year. Retired Middlebury, Connecticut, school teacher Bill Callahan, who has waited 40 years for this law, expressed his frustration, saying, “At the end of the day, it’s going to turn out to be a temporary fix for 3 million citizens. Congress will devise another poorly conceived fix, and another group will become the new pariah.”
The amount of additional monthly money affected workers will receive can vary significantly, with the SSA reporting that “some people’s benefits will increase very little while others may be eligible for over $1,000 more each month.”
As nearly 3 million Americans wait for adjustments, all Social Security beneficiaries, including the approximately 68 million Americans unaffected by the new law, “will face delays and increased wait times as SSA prioritizes this new workload,” the agency noted.