Millions of retired teachers, firefighters, police officers and others with public pensions will be reaping the benefits of the recently passed Social Security Fairness Act sooner than first projected, federal officials announced on Tuesday.
The Social Security Administration said it was immediately beginning to pay retroactive benefits and will increase monthly payments starting in April to the more than 3.2 million people affected by a law signed in December by former President Joe Biden.
The Social Security Fairness Act expanded benefits for millions by eliminating two federal policies that barred employees with a public pension from collecting their full benefits under the federal retirement program. Those same policies also reduced benefits for such workers’ surviving spouses and family members.
The benefits hike under the new law would be retroactive to December 2023. As a result, eligible recipients who previously only received partial benefits will get a full payment retroactive to a year ago.
“Social Security’s aggressive schedule to start issuing retroactive payments in February and increase monthly benefit payments beginning in April supports President Trump’s priority to implement the Social Security Fairness Act as quickly as possible,” Lee Dudek, acting commissioner of Social Security, said in a statement.
“The agency’s original estimate of taking a year or more now will only apply to complex cases that cannot be processed by automation,” Dudek added.
Most eligible Social Security recipients will get their one-time retroactive payment by the end of March, which will be deposited into their bank account on record with Social Security Administration. Depending on the type of benefit and pension, the change in payment amount will vary from person to person, the agency stated.
The agency is asking beneficiaries to wait until April to ask about the status of their retroactive payment.
