Social Security begins retroactive payments, increase in monthly benefits
Fox 8 Cleveland WJW
by: Patty Coller
Posted: Feb 28, 2025 / 10:15 AM EST
Updated: Feb 28, 2025 / 10:51 AM EST
(WKBN) – The Social Security Administration announced this week it is immediately beginning to pay retroactive benefits and will increase monthly benefit payments to people whose benefits were impacted by the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO).
The payments follow the passage of the Social Security Fairness Act, which eliminated WEP and GPO. Under those provisions, Social Security benefits were eliminated or reduced for over 3.2 million people who receive a pension based on work that was not covered by Social Security because they did not pay Social Security taxes. Some professions include teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public service jobs.
Retroactive payments are expected to begin this month and increased benefit amounts are expected to be issued in April.
Everyone impacted should get a letter stating how their payments will be adjusted or disbursed.
“The agency’s original estimate of taking a year or more now will only apply to complex cases that cannot be processed by automation. The American people deserve to get their due benefits as quickly as possible,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security.
The new law will benefit some teachers, firefighters, and police officers in many states, federal employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System and people whose work had been covered by a foreign social security system.
Most people will receive their one-time retroactive payment by the end of March, which will be deposited into their bank account on record with Social Security.
Many of these people will also receive higher monthly benefits, which will first be reflected in the benefit payment they receive in April. Depending on factors such as the type of Social Security benefit received and the amount of the person’s pension, the change in payment amount will vary from person to person.
Social Security urges beneficiaries to wait until April to ask about the status of their retroactive payment since these payments will be processed incrementally into March. Since the new monthly payment amount will begin with the April payment, beneficiaries should wait until after receiving their April payment, before contacting Social Security with questions about their monthly benefit amount.
Visit the agency’s Social Security Fairness Act webpage to learn more.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Retroactive benefits from the windfall elimination repeal to begin
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By now, you may have heard from a colleague, family member, friend–or you’ve seen it yourself–the long-awaited implementation of the repeal of the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset after passage of the Social Security Fairness Act is about to begin. Here’s the latest update:
Starting the week of Feb. 24, 2025, SSA is beginning to pay retroactive benefits and will increase monthly benefit payments to people whose benefits have been affected by the WEP and GPO .
If a beneficiary is due retroactive benefits as a result of the Act, they will receive a one-time retroactive payment, deposited into the bank account SSA has on file, by the end of March. This retroactive payment will cover the increase in their benefit amount back to January 2024, the month when WEP and GPO no longer apply.
Social Security benefits are paid one month behind. Most affected beneficiaries will begin receiving their new monthly benefit amount in April 2025 (for their March 2025 benefit).
Anyone whose monthly benefit is adjusted, or who will get a retroactive payment, will receive a mailed notice from Social Security explaining the benefit change or retroactive payment.
NOTE: A beneficiary may receive two mailed notices, the first when WEP or GPO is removed from their record, and a second when their monthly benefit amount is adjusted for their new monthly payment amount. They may receive the retroactive payment before receiving the mailed notice.
We have been able to expedite payments due to the use of automation. For the many complex cases that cannot be processed automatically, additional time is required to manually update the records and pay both retroactive benefits and the new benefits amount.
We urge beneficiaries to wait until April to inquire about the status of their retroactive payment, since these payments will process incrementally throughout March.
Beneficiaries should also wait until after receiving their April payment before contacting SSA to ask about their monthly benefit amount because the new amount will not be reflected until April for their March payment.
Note that there are four key dates:
Federal Retirees (and employees over the Social Security Full Retirement Age) that have the most to gain from this repeal:
CSRS employee or retiree married to, divorced from or widowed from a non-federal spouse who paid into FICA: First, there are the CSRS employees/retirees who were exempt from Social Security taxes during their federal career who are the spouses, former spouses, and widows/widowers of Social Security covered workers. These CSRS individuals generally have little Social Security covered employment of their own, but may have been married, widowed or divorced from a spouse who paid into FICA during their career.
These CSRS employees (working past their full retirement age who are no longer subject to the earnings limit so they can receive benefits from Social Security even while employed) and retirees over age 62 who have eligibility for a spouse or widow’s benefit, had their benefits eliminated by the GPO. The GPO reduced a spouse or a surviving spouse’s benefit by 2/3 of the CSRS retirement. Employees and retirees under CSRS Offset are generally exempt from the GPO as long as they paid into FICA for the last five years of their career. You can find more information on this GPO fact sheet.
Example of a CSRS widow of Social Security covered spouse: Jane has been a CSRS retiree since 2015 when she retired after 35 years of service at age 61. She is currently receiving a CSRS retirement benefit of $3,900/month. Jane never worked long enough to qualify for a Social Security retirement benefit. Her CSRS career was exempt from FICA taxes and the other work she performed in the private sector before coming into federal service only provided her with 26 credits; 14 credits shy of the required 40. She is now 71 years old and widowed. Her spouse died in 2019 at age 70 and was receiving $1,800 in Social Security retirement benefits at the time of his passing. Jane has not received any Social Security widow’s benefits even though she was past her “Full Retirement Age” (FRA) at the time of her husband’s death.
When she contacted Social Security to claim the benefit that was worth 100% of her deceased husband’s benefit, she was told that there would be no benefit payable to her due to the GPO. This was because the $1,800 widow’s benefit was reduced by 2/3 of her CSRS retirement (2/3 of $3,900 equals $2,600). The $1,800 widow’s benefit after being offset by $2,600, left Jane with $0 Social Security benefits. She was left without an important source of income due to the loss of this benefit. Thanks to the passage of the Social Security Fairness Act, Jane expects to receive 14 months of widow’s benefits in a lump sum in March. And then her first regular payment started in April. The amount of the benefit she is entitled was increased by the following cost-of-living adjustments since her husband passed away in 2019:
CSRS or CSRS Offset employee/retiree who worked long enough paying into FICA to qualify for an “earned” Social Security retirement benefit: CSRS and CSRS Offset employees and retirees must have earned at least 40 Social Security credits to be eligible for Social Security benefits. You earn credits when you work and pay Social Security taxes. The number of credits does not affect the dollar amount of the benefits you receive. You cannot receive any earned benefits if you don’t have enough credits. Many of these individuals are currently receiving benefits that they claimed at age 62 or later, but due to the modified formula used to compute the WEP, these benefits were reduced by the difference between 40% and 90% of the first level of the Social Security formula. For someone turning age 62 in 2025, this would result in a reduction of the difference between
40% of $1,226 instead of 90% of $1,226
Which equals $1,103.40 minus $490.40 or $613
This is $613 less than most Americans receive in the first part of the formula. The remainder of the formula is not impacted by the WEP. The $1,226 amount shown above is referred to as a “bend point” in the Social Security formula. In most years this amount increases from what it was for someone turning age 62. Here are the first “bend points” for the last 20 years:
If you have 30 or more years of substantial earnings, the first step of the formula remains at 90% and there is no WEP adjustment to worry about. If you have 21 to 29 years of substantial earnings, Social Security will reduce the 90% factor to between 45% and 85%. The maximum reduction in 2025 is $613 a month. To see the list of “substantial earnings” amounts and for more information about the WEP see the Windfall Elimination Provision Fact Sheet.
Example of CSRS retiree who is eligible for an earned Social Security retirement benefit: Joe served 10 years in the Air Force before leaving uniformed service and becoming employed as a civilian federal employee in the Department of the Air Force. When he retired in 2003 at age 55 with 32 years of service, he began receiving around 60% of his high-three average salary. In 2010, at age 62, Joe filed for his Social Security benefit that he earned from the 10 years he paid into FICA while serving on active duty. Due to the WEP, Joe was told that his earned benefit of $684.90/month would be computed using a modified formula leaving him with a reduced benefit of $304.40/month. Joe has been receiving reduced benefits for 15 years but is looking forward to the benefit being restored. Unfortunately, the new law will not restore his benefit all the way back to his starting date of benefits in 2010, but he will receive lump sum payment of 14 months of benefits dating back to the effective date of the repeal on Jan. 1, 2024. Joe’s benefit has been adjusted for cost-of-living since he started receiving benefits 15 years ago. The COLAs will be added to his benefit so that his current amount will be much greater than $684.90/month. His new unreduced monthly payments will begin in April. Here are the COLAs that will be computed in the benefit that will be paid to Joe:
The following individuals will not benefit from the repeal of the WEP and/or GPO:
Check the Social Security website frequently for updates on the Social Security Fairness Act.
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Federal employees at the Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn in New York receive 35% retention pay, but that could in jeopardy as the U.S. Bureau of Prisons is reducing or eliminating retention pay at some facilities. YUKI IWAMURA / GETTY IMAGES
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More than half of the workforce at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons will see their paychecks cut by as much as 25% next month, as the agency seeks to cut costs as it operates under a continuing resolution.
Around 23,000 employees at federal prisons across the country were told verbally at meetings Tuesday that the agency was halving—and at seven prisons ending altogether—retention pay at their facilities. Most prisons that employ retention incentives, which are designed to maintain headcount at understaffed facilities, provide employees with between an extra 10% and 25% of their base pay each paycheck. Employees at the Metropolitan Detention Center Brooklyn in New York receive 35% retention pay, though that was due in part to a federal judge’s intervention following reports of poor conditions there.
“In response to budget constraints, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has made the difficult decision to greatly reduce, and in some cases eliminate, retention incentives across the agency, effective March 23, 2025,” said BOP spokesman Donald Murphy in a statement. “This action is being taken as part of an effort to address a significant budget shortfall. The agency understands the critical role retention incentives play in supporting our dedicated employees, some of whom receive incentives as high as 35% of their salary. This decision was not made lightly, and we recognize the financial hardship this may cause for employees who rely on those incentives.”
In testimony before the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies on Wednesday, Associate Deputy Director Kathleen Toomey said that since fiscal 2024, BOP salaries have increased by 7.2% due to mandatory pay raises, without any new funding as the agency operates under a stopgap spending deal that’s slated to expire next month. In 2024 alone, the agency spent $229 million on retention incentives.
Aaron McGlothlin, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1237, which represents employees at Federal Correctional Institute Mendota in central California, was in a refresher training session when the facility’s warden broke the news to employees and described the experience as “watching 100 people all in one room get punched in the gut.”
“People ended up just leaving and going home, because they were sick to their stomachs,” he said. “[I’ve] already had five correctional officers tell me that they’re going to leave. We could lose a minimum of 10% at our already understaffed facility.”
Brandy Moore-White, president of AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals, said she’s fielded 200 phone calls and countless text messages from worried union members since yesterday’s announcement. Though she said she has never been a fan of the retention pay practice, describing it as a “Band-Aid on a bullet hole” and warning employees that the agency could cancel it at any time, she said the abrupt cleaving of the benefit could have profound impacts on the agency’s ability to meet its mission.
“One phone call that I got yesterday, from my home institution here in Arkansas—where our medical department houses about 23 staff by the last count I had—and as of yesterday every single one of them told me they were looking for another job,” she said. “I know that there are some places where it won’t be as widespread, but I’m an hour from Memphis, and a lot of my medical professionals could literally drive across the bridge and get a lot more money than they’re getting at the prison currently. And if you take their retention pay on top of that? They’re just not going to stay.”
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