The Social Security Benefits Act became law on Jan. 5, 2025. Provides benefits to millions of public sector workers (teachers, law enforcement, and more). Read on to learn more about the Act, who benefits, and how to show returned benefits in the Boldin Planner.
What is the Social Security Act?
According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Social Security Administration repeals two provisions of the Social Security Act that reduced Social Security benefits paid to public service workers.
The new law eliminates the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). The WEP and GPO prevented employees with public pensions from collecting full benefits under the state retirement system and reduced benefits for those employees’ surviving spouses and family members.
Who Benefits from the Social Security Act? And how much?
The WEP and GPO had a major impact on state and local government employees who also worked jobs that required them to pay into Social Security.
Estimates suggest that there are 3 million Americans who will see an increase in Social Security benefits and the increase could be large – hundreds of dollars a month.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that:
- Repeal of WEP would increase monthly payments for affected Social Security recipients by an average of $360.
- Ending the GPO would result in a monthly benefit increase of $700 for the 380,000 recipients who receive benefits based on surviving spouses. And, for the 390,000 survivors receiving widow or widower benefits, the average increase would be $1,190.
When Will Benefits Be Refunded?
The Social Security Administration is evaluating how and when to return benefits.
Once enacted, the new law will go into effect back in December 2023 which means thousands of dollars in payments to those who qualify.
Modeling Profitability Recovery in Boldin Planner
The Boldin editor did not have a WEP or GPO feature. Therefore, we have not created an automatic benefit reduction model for you or your dependents.
- Therefore, if you are a new user, you should see the applicable benefit rates that you should receive through the Social Security Fairness Act.
- If you are an existing user and turned off your Social Security benefits, we recommend that you correct that now to see your benefits restored. Please watch this video for a demonstration of how to activate a spouse’s Social Security benefit in your plan.
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