Social Security beneficiaries got thousands in surprise payments: Here’s why

Social Security beneficiaries all across the United States recently noticed they received a a little something extra in their bank accounts.

These surprise payments totaled thousands of dollars in some cases. And no, it wasn’t a scam.

NBC 5 Chicago reports how these payments are the result of the Social Security Fairness Act, which was signed into law by former President Joe Biden on Jan. 5.

Moneywise adds that, on average this payments amount to about $6,710.

According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Social Security Fairness Act eliminated two previous rules — the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) — that reduced benefits for certain retirees.

The release explains how these two previous rules specifically reduced or eliminated the benefits of people who received a pension based on work that wasn’t covered by Social Security, — also known as a “non-covered pension” — as they didn’t pay Social Security taxes.

While these one-time benefits should have mostly gone out by the end of last month, many people will also start getting higher monthly benefits starting this month.

This change will impact teachers, firefighters, and police officers, among other types of employees, the SSA states.

“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, via the release.

“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.”

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