Some government workers will soon get full Social Security benefits. Here's what to know.

WASHINGTON — About 94,000 Louisiana government retirees immediately will begin receiving their full Social Security benefits from any private employment that had been docked for years because they also received public service pensions.

And that’s going to start off with a lump sum check to cover the past 14 months, said Garret Graves, the former Baton Rouge congressman who shepherded the bill into law.

“The Trump administration is cutting retroactive checks this week,” Graves said Wednesday. “There is going to be a lump sum check up front and from there forward you’ll get the updated amount each month.”

For example, if a public worker was supposed to receive $1,800 a month in Social Security benefits but was docked $360 and received $1,440, that retiree will soon receive a $5,040 lump sum check — or, more likely the amount will be direct deposited. Then, the monthly check will be $1,800.

That’s an average amount. Each case is different.

What changed for retirees

Some state and municipal governments, including Louisiana’s, did not pay Social Security taxes on the pensions for their public service workers. Many of those employees held jobs before or after their public service, or worked second jobs — like those that teachers often take at night and during the summer — and contributed to Social Security.

The Windfall Elimination Provision, passed in 1983 and called WEP, reduces Social Security benefits by up to half the pension amount for people receiving pension income from jobs that didn’t contribute Social Security payroll taxes.

The Government Pension Offset, passed in 1977 and called GPO, reduces benefits for survivors if the spouse had a pension that wasn’t taxed for Social Security. The Social Security benefits can be cut by up to two-thirds of the public employee’s pension.

Both provisions were added to the law to help shore up ailing Social Security finances.

The Social Security Fairness Act repealed those rules, allowing some government retirees to receive the full amount of Social Security benefits. The bill was finally passed after midnight on December 21.

The bill was signed into law on January 5 by President Joe Biden shortly after Graves and cosponsor Abigail Spanberger, D-Virginia, had left Congress. Biden said the 3.2 million affected public workers would receive an average of $360 more per month in Social Security payments.

“These folks have waited years for this day,” U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, said in a statement. “The fight took too long, but let’s focus on the victory.”

Cassidy, who had pushed for the repeal since 2009, was in charge of getting the Senate to pass the legislation over vociferous opposition from senators who argued that the repeal amounted to a windfall for public employees at the expense of private industry workers who paid into Social Security throughout their careers.

The change will cost about $196 billion through 2034 and will continue to rise, which could hasten insolvency of the fund that pays Social Security. If the fund goes insolvent in nine years, which is predicted if nothing is done to prevent it, then everyone will see a 20% to 25% reduction in benefits even if their employers paid the taxes throughout their career.

A faster timeline

The Social Security Administration began depositing retroactive payments into bank accounts Tuesday, and plans to complete nearly all retroactive payments by the end of March. Adjustments to ongoing monthly benefits will begin in April.

Graves said the Social Security Administration initially told him that its workers would have to manually review the cases of each of the 3.2 million people impacted to determine eligibility and calculate how much each would receive.

The agency under the Trump Administration used automation to speed the process, Graves said.

Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, said in a statement: “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.”

The complex cases will be handled manually.

Some need to apply

In general, public retirees already receiving Social Security will need to do nothing more.

But thousands of workers and their spouses never applied for Social Security when they learned that their benefits would be docked because of their public pensions. Those people will need to apply to Social Security for retirement or spousal or surviving spouse’s benefits.

For additional eligibility information, visit www.ssa.gov/apply. However, the survivor benefit application is not available online.

Call 1-800-772-1213 Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central Time. When the system asks, “How can I help you today?”, say “Fairness Act.” Then, you’ll be asked a few questions. Your answers will lead you to a WEP-GPO trained representative to take your application.