Senators call for longer timeline for retroactive Social Security Fairness Act payments

At the start of 2025, during President Joe Biden's final weeks in office, lawmakers pushed forward with last-minute major legislation that provides Social Security benefit increases to certain public pensioners.The Social Security Fairness Act was passed with an overwhelming bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate, and Biden signed it into law on Jan. 5, 2025.Now, several senators are calling on the Social Security Administration to reconsider what they say is a flaw in the law's implementation: retroactive payments limited to six months rather than one year for certain beneficiaries.The Social Security Fairness Act eliminated two provisions — the Windfall Elimination Provision, or WEP, and the Government Pension Offset, or GPO — that reduced or, in some cases, eliminated Social Security benefits for individuals who receive pension income from jobs where Social Security payroll taxes were not paid. However, those individuals also have other income from jobs that paid into the program, which made them eligible for benefits.The law affects more than 2.8 million people, according to the Social Security Administration, including teachers, firefighters and police officers in certain states. Relatives of affected workers — specifically spouses and surviving spouses — also received adjusted benefits under the provisions.The adjustments include new, higher monthly benefit payments, as well as a retroactive lump-sum payment for benefits paid from January 2024 onward. Yet while the law provides for one-year retroactive payments, some beneficiaries have only received payments for six months, based on the Social Security Administration's interpretation of the law, several senators wrote in a Feb. 5 letter to the agency. Bill Cassidy, R-La., John Cornyn, R-Texas, and John Fetterman, D-Pa., signed the letter.The senators had previously sent a letter to the SSA in April 2025 expressing concerns about retroactive spousal benefits under the new law. In its response to the lawmakers, their letter states, the Social Security Administration said the six-month limitation for new applicants was because the new law did not amend certain wording of the Social Security Act that established the program in 1935. Consequently, the one-year retroactive benefits could be applied only to individuals who were already receiving benefits as of January 2024 or who had filed a benefit application on or before that date, according to the agency.The Social Security Administration did not provide a comment by press time."We do not fault SSA for not having a crystal ball," Sens. Cassidy, Cornyn and Fetterman wrote in their Feb. 5 letter.Because Congress did not know if or when the Social Security Fairness Act would pass, it "did not distinguish between new and current beneficiaries in setting the Act's effective date," the senators wrote. Likewise, the agency could not have predicted the changes that were enacted, they wrote.The Social Security Administration should follow the "plain text" of the Social Security Fairness Act and provide a one-year retroactive date, starting from January 2024, for all applicants, regardless of their benefit application date, Sens. Cassidy, Cornyn and Fetterman wrote. Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said, "the law that was passed is absolutely clear ... The law says it's 12 months." The National Committee, an advocacy organization, lobbied for the changes in the Social Security Fairness Act for decades, said Richtman, who attended Biden's signing of the law.Following the law's implementation, millions of Social Security beneficiaries have seen their payments increase."The biggest difference has been for public servants who didn't earn as much," including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, sheriff deputies and policy officers, Cassidy said in an email statement. "Restoring their benefits restored their ability to live securely in retirement."Got a confidential news tip? We want to hear from you.Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inboxGet this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.© 2026 Versant Media, LLC.

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