Over 3 Million Social Security Recipients Are About to Get Bigger Checks (and Backpay)
The Social Security Administration announced that it has begun to issue retroactive payments to 3.2 million Americans slated to receive additional benefits under a new law.
The Social Security Fairness Act, which the lame-duck Congress passed in December, eliminates two other pieces of Social Security law, the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). Those statutes limited the amount of Social Security benefits that could be collected by people who get certain kinds of public pensions, such as teachers, police officers, firefighters and other government employees.
In a polarized Washington, the law garnered a rare degree of broad bipartisan support: The House of Representatives voted 327 to 75 to pass it, and the Senate voted 76 to 20 in favor. Then-President Joe Biden signed it into law Jan. 5.
Why did Congress change WEP and GPO?
Most of the country's workforce contributes to Social Security through payroll taxes. Private-sector workers typically become eligible for Social Security retirement benefits after paying into the system for at least 10 years.
Since public-sector workers are covered by different pension systems, they aren't required to pay those taxes and generally don't qualify for Social Security retirement benefits. Some public-sector workers do, though, if they worked a second job or took a retirement gig in the private sector.
The WEP and GPO were conceived to prevent this group of workers from "double-dipping" and collecting both Social Security and public pension benefits. But proponents of the Social Security Fairness Act argued that public-sector retirees are rightfully owed these benefits because they have paid into Social Security.
Who benefits from the Social Security Fairness Act?
The SSA noted that most local and state public-sector workers do pay into Social Security and are unaffected by the new law. Still, an estimated 3.2 million retirees, spouses and surviving spouses of eligible retirees will benefit, according to its website.
How much will Social Security payments increase?
The roughly 2.1 million beneficiaries affected by the WEP will see an additional $360, on average, in their monthly benefit payments, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said, based on December 2025 benefit estimates.
The GPO repeal, which affects spouses and surviving spouses, would increase average monthly payments by $700 for 380,000 spouses and by $1,190 for another 390,000 surviving spouses.
What should I do?
You might not need to do anything. Acting commissioner Lee Dudek said in a news release that the agency’s “aggressive schedule” calls for retroactive payments to start going out this month.
The Social Security Fairness Act stipulated that the WEP and GPO would no longer be in effect as of January 2024, so eligible beneficiaries are owed backpay from that date. The agency said these payments started going out the week of Feb. 24 and that everyone owed a retroactive payment should receive it by the end of March.
The larger monthly payments will go into effect starting with March Social Security payments (which are set to be paid out in April). In both cases, the SSA will deposit the money into the bank accounts the agency has on record for beneficiaries.
If you’re one of the eligible beneficiaries for the WEP and/or the GPO rollback, you’ll receive a notice in the mail from the SSA detailing the amount of retroactive payments and/or monthly payment increases.
The SSA has an FAQ that addresses these and other related questions. If you're not sure if the agency has the correct mailing address or bank account information on file, you can check your Social Security account online, or call them at 800-772-1213.
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