The Social Security Administration (SSA) has paid more than 1.1 million people retroactive benefits due to the Social Security Fairness Act. These people, such as teachers, firefighters, and police officers, have public pensions. The SSA said on Tuesday that it is still sending out these retroactive payments to eligible Social Security beneficiaries.
Their monthly payments will go up starting in April, reflecting the benefits adjustment for March. The adjustments and retroactive payments are because of a law passed in January. The law is expected to give an average monthly increase of $360 to over 2.5 million Social Security recipients.
The recent payments are related to the law getting rid of two federal policies.
Social Security fairness boosts payments
These policies stopped employees with a public pension from getting their full Social Security benefits.
The policies also affected benefits for the surviving spouses and family members of these workers. The benefits increase, going back to December 2023, makes sure that eligible recipients who only got partial benefits before will now get full payments going back a year. The average retroactive payment through March 4 is $6,710, the SSA reported.
About 1.13 million people have gotten a total of $7.5 billion in retroactive payments through this date. Future increases in Social Security payments will be different based on the type of benefit and pension involved. It will vary from person to person.
The SSA said that while some people’s benefits will only see small increases, others may get over $1,000 more each month.
Image Credits: Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash
