Social Security Fairness Act signed into law by Biden, enhancing retirement benefits for millions
President Biden on Sunday signed legislation expanding Social Security benefits for millions of retired Americans, including firefighters, police officers and teachers.
"Americans who have worked hard all their life to make an honest living should be able to retire with economic security and dignity," Mr. Biden told a gathering at the White House before signing the Social Security Fairness Act, which he said would mean an average monthly increase of $360 for more than 2.5 million Social Security recipients.
"That's a big deal in middle-class households like the one I grew up in and many of you did," the president added.
Those beneficiaries will also receive a lump sum in the thousands of dollars to make up for the shortfall in benefits they should have received in 2024, the president said.
The Social Security Fairness Act eliminates 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.
"Biden is the first president in more than 20 years to expand Social Security benefits," a White House spokesperson said in a statement. "The bill he is signing today will expand benefits by hundreds of dollars per month for more than 2.5 million Americans."
The new law came in just under the wire, with Mr. Biden signing it only weeks before the end of his presidency and after the Senate on December 21 voted 76-20 to pass the measure in the waning hours of the 118th Congress. House lawmakers approved the bill, known as H.R. 82, in November.
Long, hard road
The push to enhance Social Security payments for public pension recipients has been decades in the making, with the Senate holding its first hearings into the policies in 2003.
The Social Security Fairness Act had bipartisan support, yet faced last-minute objections from some Republicans due to its cost. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the law would add an estimated $195 billion to the federal deficit over a decade.
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.
Specifically, the new Social Security law repeals policies known as the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO), which together act to reduce Social Security payments to 2.5 million retirees.
International Association of Fire Fighters General President Edward Kelly in a statement Sunday said Congress "broke a promise" when it enacted the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset.
"Today, that promise has been restored, and retired fire fighters and emergency medical workers will now receive the full Social Security benefits they've earned and paid into," Kelly said.
How much more in benefits?
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in September that eliminating the WEP would increase monthly payments to affected Social Security recipients by an average of $360 by December 2025, according to the Associated Press.
Scrapping the GPO would increase monthly benefits in December 2025 by an average of $700 for 380,000 recipients getting benefits based on living spouses, the agency found. The increase would amount to an average of $1,190 for 390,000 or surviving spouses getting a widow or widower benefit.
"The law that existed denied millions of Americans access to the full Social Security benefits they earned," Mr. Biden said after signing the bill into law.
That said, the new law does not address the "tremendous financial impact on the trust funds and the challenging [Social Security Administration] implementation procedures that will be required," said Martha Shedden, president of the National Association of Registered Social Security Analysts.
In an update Monday, the Social Security Administration said it is evaluating how to implement the act. Beneficiaries don't need to take any action to receive the enhanced payments other than verifying that the agency has their current mailing address and direct deposit information. Most people can do that online with their "my Social Security account" without having to call or visiting SSA, according to the agency.
