A big day in history, and a victory for many workers who have fought hard for decades to get the Social Security Fairness Act signed into law. Over the past few years, millions of retirees from the public sector have been fighting against this unfair rule.
Now that H.R. 82 has been passed, these unfair situations will finally end for these people. We are now going to tell you what has happened with this law and what it means that Biden has finally signed it.
What is the Social Security Fairness Act?
The law that Biden just signed will get rid of two federal policies that were hurting public sector workers a lot. This law will mostly affect teachers, police officers, and firefighters who used to work for the government. These two federal rules were called the Government Pension Discount (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP).
So, these laws basically cut the money that these former workers and their spouses got from their pensions by a large amount. This means that now 2.5 million people will be able to get all the benefits they have earned over many years of service!
Does this have an economic impact on families?
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that this law will bring about $360 more into the monthly payments of people who are affected. Aside from that, the monthly income of these workers’ surviving spouses will rise to $1,190 by December 2025.
The payments will go back to December 2023, which means that these people will get the money that they have been saving up to make up for the last few months’ deficit this December.
How important is this change?
Think about how these policies have kept these former workers from getting their full pension for decades. The head of the International Association of Firefighters, Edward Kelly, said that these promises had been broken but were now being kept.
So, Biden said when he signed this law that public families should also be able to retire with honor, since they had worked their whole lives to be able to do so.
How has the process towards approval been?
This “revolt” started more than twenty years ago, with the first hearings in the Senate in 2003. However, passing it has been hard for many reasons, mostly because it will cost $195 billion over the next few years.
Today, many people are against this reform because Social Security funds are at all-time lows. It is thought that there will be funds until 2033 (after that, no data is available), so those who are against it are not against former workers finally getting the money they deserve; they are against it because there is no other plan to get the funds back.
Do beneficiaries need to do anything?
No, the SSA (Social Security Administration) has assured that beneficiaries will not have to request anything at all and that they will receive their money immediately before the end of the year. They only recommend that users verify their contact information in case they need to notify something.
So, the approval of this law is an achievement that corrects decades of injustices in the Social Security system, and will not only improve the present of many retirees, but also the future of all those who dedicate themselves to public service.
It is clear that there are still many things to correct and value, but at least, from now on 2.5 million people will be able to sleep peacefully knowing that they will not have a hard time making ends meet and that they are finally getting what they deserve after so many years!
