The United States Social Security Fairness Act has now gone into effect. According to the Administration, this new policy measure will increase Social Security benefit payments for current and former public employees whose benefits were reduced due to “uncovered pensions”.
This new bill will therefore affect millions of people who have worked in public service roles, and even if you qualify, you may receive back payments for the entire year 2024.
Thus, the American Fairness Act eliminates two rules that will result in higher payments for eligible US Social Security beneficiaries. This would be in addition to Social Security’s recent cost-of-living adjustment for 2025, which would result in a 2.5% increase in payments for recipients of Social Security, Social Security Disability Insurance, and Supplemental Security Income.
This new law will thus help to prevent vulnerable situations and alleviate the economic suffocation that these groups may face.
Social Security Fairness Act in the United States
The United States’ Social Security Fairness Act eliminates the unforeseen advantage (WEP) and the government pension offset (GPO).
These provisions reduced or eliminated Social Security benefits for over 3.2 million people who received a pension for work that was not covered by Social Security, known as a ‘uncovered pension’.
This law, therefore, increases Social Security benefits for certain types of workers, such as the following:
- teachers, firefighters and police officers in many states;
- federal employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System; and
- people whose work had been covered by a social insurance system of another country.
However, only people who receive a pension for work not covered by Social Security will see an increase in benefits under the new law. The vast majority of state and municipal public employees, approximately 72%, work in jobs covered by Social Security and are not affected by the WEP or GPO.
These people are unaffected by the Fairness Act and will not see an increase in benefits. As a result, the Social Security Administration is finalizing its plan to implement the law while minimizing the negative impact on our regular jobs and public services.
In accordance with the administration, “we are not yet able to provide estimates on when we will adjust a person’s past or future benefits, but we will continue to provide updates on this website.”
People who qualify for SSA
The amount by which an affected beneficiary’s monthly benefits can change varies significantly. So, depending on the type of Social Security benefit received and the amount of the person’s pension, some people’s earnings will increase very little, whereas others may be eligible for thousands of dollars more per month.
On the other hand, for those segments of the population who already qualify for Social Security, the administration claims that there is nothing they can do, at least for the time being.
The only thing they have publicly stated is the requirement to keep each worker’s personal information and postal address up to date, with the goal of expediting procedures if necessary.
