The repeal of two federal provisions by then President Biden in January has opened the door to higher Social Security benefits for some public employees.
Biden officially repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset via the Social Security Fairness Act on Jan. 5. These laws, created in 1983, reduced Social Security benefits for certain retired public workers, such as teachers, police officers, fire-fighters, and other government employees.
On its website, the Social Security Administration says that WEP and GPO reduced or eliminated social security benefits for more than 3.2 million people who receive a pension based on work that was not covered by Social Security (a “non-covered pension”) because they did not pay Social Security taxes.
This group includes teachers and firefighters in many states, including Massachusetts; federal employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System; and people whose work had been covered by a foreign social security system.
The provision was created to prevent this group from getting unfairly high benefits through both a government pension and Social Security benefit pay-ment or what was considered a “windfall.”
GPO similarly affected Social Security benefits for spouses or widows and widowers. This offset reduced or eliminated spousal or survivor benefits from Social Security for people who received a government pension from a job that did not pay into Social Security.
The repeal of both provisions is expected to increase Social Security benefits for more than 2 million retired public servants, according to the Government Executive news site.
Those whose Social Security benefit was reduced through WEP may now see higher payments. Likewise, spouses and survivors may now receive their full benefits.
The SSA cautions that multiple conditions need to exist to see an increase in benefits.
“Only people who receive a pension based on work not covered by Social Security may see benefit increases,” the administration writes on SSA.gov. “Most state and local public employees – about 72 percent – work in Social Security-covered employment where they pay Social Security taxes and are not affected by WEP or GPO. Those individuals will not receive a benefit increase due to the new law.”
In some cases, back pay may be possible.
According to the SSA, December 2023 is the last month that WEP and GPO will apply. This means that those rules no longer apply to benefits payable for January 2024 and later.
In many cases, no action is required to receive the higher benefit; however, the SSA says that those who never applied for retirement, spouse’s, or surviving spouse’s benefits because of WEP or GPO may need to file an application.
The timeline for making these changes is unclear, according to SSA. On its website, it states: “Processing these changes is very complex and SSA’s analysis shows that much of the work must be done manually, on an individual case-by-case basis. SSA is currently processing pending or new claims involving future benefits and developing procedures and automated solutions for computing retroactive benefits.”
Mass Retirees praised the decision to repeal WEP and GPO on its website. The state association had worked for the repeal for many years and was instrumental in the recent success.
“Despite years of disappointment, frustration, and anger, our members never gave up the fight – nor did our Association,” said Association President Frank Valeri in a statement. “Beyond the financial relief that repeal of WEP/ GPO will bring to tens of thousands of Mass Retirees and survivors, it is knowing that per-severance has won the day that makes this moment incredibly special. Our members, and hundreds of thousands of retirees across the country, won because they never stopped fighting for fair and equal treatment.”
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