Their Social Security benefits were slashed. Now they’re getting hundreds — maybe thousands — of dollars back under new law Biden just signed.

Roger Boudreau didn’t know his Social Security benefit was going to be slashed for being a teacher with a pension until after he retired.

He had waited until his full retirement age to claim benefits, at which point he should have received $1,000 per month. Instead, he’s been receiving 40% less for the past decade — or $5,000 a year. Now, at age 75, that’s about to change with the passage of the Social Security Fairness Act.

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“We fixed it,” said Boudreau, president of the Rhode Island American Federation of Teachers/Retirees Local 8037R and a regional board member for the Alliance for Retired Americans.

President Biden earlier this week signed the Social Security Fairness Act, which repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset — two laws that cut Social Security benefits for workers and their spouses if they received pensions from public-sector jobs.

“This wasn’t just personal,” said Boudreau, who attended the White House signing ceremony on Sunday. “This was for millions of people.”

More than 2.65 million Americans as of November 2024 have been affected by the WEP and GPO — including teachers, firefighters and police officers, among other public servants. These workers aren’t always aware that they’ll receive reduced benefits until they get to retirement.

Boudreau, for example, received Social Security statements while he was still employed, but those documents showed him his earned benefits — not the reductions he’d be subject to. Even though there is legislation that states new employees after Jan. 1, 2005 must recognize the fact they’ll be penalized by those rules, Boudreau found in his research that the compliance for those forms was “practically zero,” he said.

Judy Bryant, 76, knew about the law that would cut her benefits, and she’s been fighting to fix it for the last 25 years. “I was 51, 52, and thought surely by the time I get to the age I can start drawing Social Security, we will have this fixed,” she said.

Bryant, who is a field organizer for the Alliance for Retired Americans in Texas, was a teacher for 32 years, but paid into Social Security before and after college and while working part time for her union. Still, because of WEP, her benefit was cut almost 50%.

“I knew I wasn’t going to get a huge amount. I wasn’t expecting to live on Social Security when I retired,” she said. “It will mean a great deal for me to actually get the full amount that I earned and paid in.”

It also means a lot to her that future generations, including those of her own, won’t have to make the same sacrifices she faced. “My son is earning Social Security, and my grandkids soon. They’ll get the amount they earned and not lose money for 10 [or] 11 years,” Bryant said.

Another change she and her colleagues at the ARA are promoting is to “scrap the cap,” which would eliminate the income-ceiling limit workers pay taxes up to for Social Security. In 2025, the limit is $176,100, at which point employees no longer pay into the system.

Legislators have included provisions like this in Social Security-focused proposals, saying it, along with other provisions, would help the program’s insolvency issues. Right now, the two trust funds that support Social Security benefits are expected to run out of money within the next decade, which would result in a 17% benefit cut across the board.

Critics of the Social Security Fairness Act said it would speed up the program’s insolvency date. “That increase in Social Security benefits would drive the program’s spending even further above its revenues than it is already projected to be under current law,” the Congressional Budget Office said in an analysis of the long-term effects of the new law.

Eliminating the income cap would relieve that issue, Bryant said.

Waiting for benefits 

Along with benefit adjustments, the Social Security Fairness Act included retroactive pay for benefits from January 2024.

There’s no set date for when those adjustments will happen, the Social Security Administration said in a statement, but updates will be available on a page dedicated to the changes. “As our website says, at this time, people do not need to take any action except to verify that SSA has their current mailing address and direct-deposit information if it has recently changed,” a spokesperson said. “Most people can do this online with their personal My Social Security account without calling or visiting Social Security. Visit www.ssa.gov/myaccount to sign in or create your account.”

Social Security workers spend considerable amounts of time talking to claimants about the cuts they’ll see because of their public-sector jobs, said Jessica LaPointe, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 220, which represents Social Security field workers.

“This has been a real heartbreaker as federal workers when we have to sit down and explain to dedicated public servants for federal, state or local governments that they’re going to have their earned Social Security benefit reduced,” she said.

The Social Security Administration is already understaffed, she said, but employees will spend 30 to 60 minutes during preliminary phone calls and sit-down meetings with beneficiaries explaining WEP and GPO and how they will impact their checks. With more than 2.5 million people affected, Social Security field workers are also often “taking the brunt of the disgruntlement on behalf of Congress and this law,” LaPointe said.

Calls are flooding through the Social Security Administration as beneficiaries try to figure out the Social Security Fairness Act’s impact on their checks. The volume of work will be maxed out with short staffing, LaPointe said, but the pain point will be temporary. “When this is all said and done, everyone will be better off,” she said.

“This is obviously just a general win for public servants unfairly affected by this,” LaPointe said. “This is people’s retirement security. Up to $600 a month can make a difference with keeping the lights on, to be able to put groceries on the table, to be able to pay the rent, to have retirees not move in with family and live life with dignity through their golden years. This is the most significant Social Security expansion in the last 20 years.”

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