KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Retired public workers who benefit from the new Social Security Fairness Act will see increased benefits immediately.
- The law was signed in January, but the Social Security Administration (SSA) said it would take over a year to disburse increased benefits.
- The SSA reversed its previous announcement on Tuesday and said beneficiaries will see increased benefits beginning in March and April.
Beneficiaries of the new Social Security Fairness Act will see their increased benefits immediately after all.
The law, signed by former President Joe Biden in January 2025, eliminated two rules that reduced Social Security benefits for over 3 million retirees. However, at the end of that month, the Social Security Administration (SSA) said it would take more than a year to adjust future benefits and payout retroactive benefits.
On Tuesday, the SSA reversed its previous announcement and said beneficiaries would receive their increased payments this year. Beneficiaries will receive their one-time retroactive check by the end of March and see their increased monthly payments in April.
“The agency’s original estimate of taking a year or more now will only apply to complex cases that cannot be processed by automation,” Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, said in a press release. “The American people deserve to get their due benefits as quickly as possible.”
Retroactive payments will be processed incrementally throughout March for the retired teachers, firefighters, police officers, some federal employees, and spouses who were previously affected by the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO) rules.
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