The Social Security Administration says millions of retired teachers, firefighters, police officers and others with public public pensions may have to wait up to a year or longer to reap the benefits of the recently passed Social Security Fairness Act.
The newly enacted law requires the agency to adjust benefits for more than 3 million people, including calculating retroactive payments and future benefits. But the law did not provide additional financing or staff to help implement the law or deal with the increased workload, the Social Security Administration (SSA) noted in an update Friday.
“SSA’s ability to implement the law in a timely manner and without negatively affecting day-to-day customer service relies on funding,” according to the agency. “Though SSA is helping some affected beneficiaries now, under SSA’s current budget, SSA expects that it could take more than one year to adjust benefits and pay all retroactive benefits.”
Ongoing staffing shortages, compounded by a hiring freeze since November 2024, will make the task of servicing people “more difficult,” SSA stated. All Social Security recipients, including those not affected by the new law, will face delays and increased wait times as SSA contends with the new workload, according to the agency.
“We thank the public for its patience,” it added.
Callers to SSA’s toll-free number are played a message about the Social Security Fairness Act, with an aim of avoiding long and frustrating wait times for people seeking information about the new law. Yet more than 7,000 people each day still opt to wait to speak to a person, creating a logjam that’s only expected to worsen over the coming weeks and months.
Signed into law in December by former President Joe Biden, the Social Security Fairness Act expands 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 and that reduced benefits for those 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.
Processing the changes is complex and much of the work has to be done manually on a case-by-case basis, SSA said. Some people’s benefits will increase very little, while others could be looking at more than $1,000 more a month, it said.
The Biden White House had pegged the average monthly increase expected as a result of the law at $360 for more than 2.5 million Social Security recipients.
People with public pensions whose Social Security benefits were previously penalized should make sure their name and address are up to date in their profile on ssa.gov. The SSA will reach out if necessary, but there is no need to reapply for Social Security benefits, according to the agency.
