Senators want longer lump-sum payment timeline

Lawmakers in early 2025, during President Joe Biden’s final weeks in office pushed forward A last-minute regulation provided increases in Social Security benefits for some public retirees.

The Social Security Fairness Act passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and Biden signed it into law on January 5, 2025.

Now some senators are calling on the Social Security Administration to reconsider what they say is a flaw in the law’s implementation: retroactive payments are limited to six months instead of one year for certain beneficiaries.

The Social Security Fairness Act eliminated two provisions – the Windfall Elimination Provision, or WEP, and the Government Pension Offset, or GPO – that had reduced or, in some cases, eliminated Social Security benefits for individuals earning retirement income from jobs for which Social Security payroll taxes were not paid. However, these individuals also have income other than work that pays into the program, making them eligible for benefits.

The law affects more than 2.8 million people, including teachers, firefighters and police officers in certain states, according to the Social Security Administration. Relatives of affected employees (especially spouses and surviving spouses) also received benefits adjusted under the provisions.

The regulations include new, higher monthly benefit payments, as well as a retroactive lump sum payment for social benefits paid from January 2024.

But some senators wrote in a op-ed that although the law provides for one-year retroactive payments, some beneficiaries received payments for only six months under the Social Security Administration’s interpretation of the law. February 5 letter to the agency. The letter was sent to Bill Cassidy, R-La., John Cornyn, R-Texas, and John Fetterman, D-Pa. signed.

Senators previously sent a letter to the SSA in April 2025 expressing concerns about retroactive spousal benefits under the new law.

The Social Security Administration’s response to lawmakers said the six-month limit for new applicants was because the new law did not change some provisions of the Social Security Act, which established the program in 1935, the letter said.

As a result, the one-year retroactive benefits will only be available to people who were already receiving benefits as of January 2024 or who applied for benefits on or before that date, according to the agency.

The Social Security Administration had no comment by press time.

“We do not fault SSA for not having a crystal ball,” Senators Cassidy, Cornyn, and Fetterman wrote in their February 5 letter.

Because Congress does not know if or when the Social Security Fairness Act will pass, the senators wrote, “it does not distinguish between new and existing beneficiaries when determining the effective date of the Act.” Likewise, they wrote, the agency could not predict the changes that became law.

Sens. Cassidy, Cornyn and Fetterman wrote that the Social Security Administration should follow the “plain text” of the Social Security Fairness Act and offer a one-year retroactive date starting in January 2024 to all applicants, regardless of their benefit filing date.

“The recorded law is absolutely clear… The law says 12 months,” said Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Protect Social Security and Medicare. he said.

The National Committee, an advocacy organization, has been lobbying for changes to the Social Security Fairness Act for decades, said Richtman, who attended Biden signing the legislation.

Following the law’s implementation, millions of Social Security beneficiaries saw their payments increase.

“The biggest difference has been for public servants who don’t earn as much, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers, sheriff’s deputies and policy clerks,” Cassidy said in an email statement. “The restoration of benefits restored their ability to live securely in retirement.”