One of the last bills President Biden signed into law was the Social Security Fairness Actof 2024 ¹. This essentially took away the rule that said Americans can’t collect both a publicly funded Social Security Income check and a publicly funded pension.

I've debated sending this email out to everyone, knowing that the rule change on pensions and Social Security doesn't apply to everyone. However, I'm sure everyone knows a teacher, a public service worker, or a federal employee, so I decided to send it anyway.

Many times I heard people telling me that the coordination rules of Social Security and pensions were not fair. 

But, rules change.

Going forward, a retired person's pension will no longer force down their Social Security. Or at least, based on new rules, it won't.

To top it off, these corrections will retroactively backdate to January 2024. The Social Security posted on 02/25/2025 that they will try to catch up on retroactive payment by late March! ²

From a retiree's perspective, this change should be awesome.

All of a sudden we will see some senior citizens getting a bump in their Social Security check.

From a budgetary perspective, it doesn’t help the deficit. This will put a further hole in the federal budget and a heavier strain on the Social Security Trust Fund.

There are a lot of questions still to be answered, and notices are coming out almost daily. We could direct you to the Social Securities webpage regarding the Social Security Fairness Act, but I'm going to try and unpack a lot of it for us. ³
https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/social-security-fairness-act.html?tl=0

Here’s what we do know:

First, let’s understand the two provisions that came into play when coordinating with Social Security Income: the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). They’re complicated, but don’t worry—I’m here to break them down in a way that makes sense!

What Is the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP)?

Let’s start with the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). The WEP affects individuals who have worked in both a government job (where you didn’t pay into Social Security) and a private-sector job (where you did). If you’re someone who’s had a career in a government role where you were exempt from paying into Social Security, the WEP could reduce the Social Security benefits you receive when you retire, compared to what you would normally be eligible for based on your earnings in the private sector.

Now there are certain rules that the more you work for the non-coordinated company the less of a reduction you would get, but the rules are still there. These pensions reduced the amount available in Social Security, in many cases by 100%.

Think of a teacher who worked in the school system and gets a PERs check. Teachers don’t pay into Social Security when they pay into the PERs pension.
If this teacher worked at coffee shops or retail prior to becoming a teacher or worked for a private tutor while a teacher. If she worked over 10 years and got enough credits, she may then be eligible for Social Security.
With the WEP rules, her non-coordinated pension would reduce her Social Security, often to $0. So in the past, even though she paid into Social Security, and she paid into the pension, she did not get the Social Security Income check.

That’s just the way the system worked. Many thought that was unfair, and I totally see their point.

Now, let’s talk about the Government Pension Offset (GPO)

The Government Pension Offset (GPO) is another provision that could impact the Social Security benefits you receive. This one comes into play if you're a spouse or widow(er) who is eligible for Social Security benefits based on your partner's work history, and you also receive a government pension from a job where you didn’t pay into Social Security. In simpler terms, if you're receiving a pension from a government job (again, where Social Security wasn’t part of the equation), the GPO could reduce or even eliminate the Social Security spousal or survivor benefits you’re entitled to.

The GPO essentially says that if you get a government pension based on your own work (a pension from a government job where you didn’t pay into Social Security), then the Social Security spousal or survivor benefits you would normally receive are reduced by two-thirds of the amount of your government pension.

Think of a client I work with. The husband was a municipality worker and did not get a Social Security check. The wife was a dentist and get a very healthy Social Security check.
When the husband passed away, his pension benefit reduced her Social Security down by 2/3.
The wife thought this was not fair! She worked her entire adult life, and he worked his entire adult life. She was not happy that her Social Security was reduced by so much.

So now what?

Basically, the reduction is no more.

But there are a TON of questions we don’t know the answers to.

• What’s the best way to file and get my benefits owed to me?
• When will someone get the benefit increase?
• How much more will someone get?

One thing we do know is these changes will apply the benefit you get on your own record and to your spouse's or the surviving spouse's benefit. If you have never applied for Social Security, possibly because you thought there was no point, you should.

Go to the www.ssa.gov/apply website and sign up. If you have never applied, you should be able to by phone. As the SSA website states:

“We will take an application by telephone for people who did not previously apply for retirement benefits because of WEP or spouse's or surviving spouse's benefits because of GPO. If you meet these conditions, call 1-800-772-1213 Monday through Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET. When the system asks, "How can I help you today?", say "Fairness Act." Then, you'll be asked a few questions. Your answers will help us connect you to a WEP-GPO trained representative to take your claim.”

Survivor benefits are not available online, but the Social Security does expect things to be sorted out in the coming months.

The Social Security Administration is working on this. As posted:

“Social Security’s aggressive schedule to start issuing retroactive payments in February and increase monthly benefit payments beginning in April supports President Trump’s priority to implement the Social Security Fairness Act as quickly as possible,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. ¹

Here’s a couple more questions have I thought up:

• How will budget cuts and lack of federal employees contribute to the delay on hearing back from the Social Security Administration? Great question. We don’t know. The SSA just asks that we be patient.
• Will the “ambassadors” with the DOGE cut this benefit and Congress reverse their ruling? This is a slight possibility. Honestly, I’m telling those who ask to enjoy these payments while they are here in case the ruling is reversed.
• Will someone be able to go back and claim missed benefits from when they originally filed while the GPO/WEP were still in law? Most likely no, but the SSA has not clarified yet.
• Will the back pay of Social Security benefits be adjusted for inflation? Again, we don’t know.

There are surely going to be more answers to come. But for now, all we can do is what the Social Security office tells us to do: be patient.