While there are many provisions in Social Security payments that many do not like, two of he most hated ones were the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). These provisions were finally repealed after years of complaints in January this year by former President Joe Biden when he signed the Social Security Fairness Act.
Why were these provisions seen as unfair? Well, because they reduced the amount of benefits that those that had a public and a private pension could receive.
The WEP was a “formula used to adjust Social Security worker benefits for people who receive “non-covered pensions” and qualify for Social Security benefits based on other Social Security–covered earnings. a A non-covered pension is a pension paid by an employer that does not withhold Social Security taxes from your salary, typically, state and local governments or non-U.S. employers. Congress passed the WEP to prevent workers who receive non-covered pensions from receiving higher Social Security benefits as if they were long-time, low-wage earners.”
And the GPO “adjusted Social Security spousal or widow(er) benefits for people who receive “non-covered pensions.” Congress created the GPO in 1977 to help ensure that spousal and widow(er) benefits of those with covered or non-covered lifetime earnings would be roughly equal.”
How does this repeal affect Social Security
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has been working since the provisions were repealed to adjust the benefits of the affected individuals. This affects around 3.2 million public sector employees, including teachers, firefighters, police officers, and certain federal employees that after their public sector careers also worked regular jobs and contributed to Social Security while not receiving their due payment after retirement. Thankfully, with the Social Security Fairness Act coming into effect, they will now have their full benefits restored to them.
In addition to an increased monthly benefit amount, the impacted beneficiaries will also receive a retroactive payment, which will be distributed as a once off, lump sum payment and it could date as far back as January 2024. The agency also noted in its update that “anyone whose monthly benefit is adjusted, or who will get a past due payment, will receive a mailed notice from Social Security explaining the benefit change or past due payment.”
In a press release from April 29th, the SSA stated, “SSA has made significant strides in implementing the Social Security Fairness Act, having paid over $14.8 billion in retroactive payments to more than 2.2 million individuals affected by the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset. Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, the agency’s original estimate of taking a year or more to issue payments now will apply to only complex cases that cannot be processed by automation.”
The process will be completed soon, but it has taken a few months as some cases have needed to be adjusted manually by an employee of the SSA and as a result, it will take additional time to be fully processed.
As the SSA explained in an update on its website “For the many complex cases that cannot be processed automatically, additional time is required to manually update the records and pay both retroactive benefits and the new benefits amount. We are expediting these cases now.”
Since the complicated cases are so comparatively few, the SSA expects to have the process completed by July 1st, as recently appointed SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano has announced. Although reports of his direction on this topic have been contradictory, according to the SSA website, as of June 20th, the SSA has completed the adjustments of 99% of the cases impacted by the Social Security Fairness Act, so the rest should not take too long to complete.