Social Security Administration says that millions of retired teachers, firefighters, police officers and others with public pensions may have to wait up to a year or more to reap the benefits of the recently approved Social Security Education Law.
The newly promulgated law It requires that the agency adjust the benefits for more than 3 million people, including the calculation of retroactive payments and future benefits. But the law did not provide additional or personal financing to help implement the law or deal with the increase in the workload, the Social Security Administration (SSA) pointed out in a update Friday.
“SSA’s ability to implement the law in a timely manner and without negatively affecting everyday customer service depends on financing,” according to the agency. “Although the SSA is helping some affected beneficiaries now, under the current SSA budget, SSA hopes that it can have been adjusting the benefits for more than a year and paying all retroactive benefits.”
The continuous scarcity of personnel, aggravated by a freezing of hiring since November 2024, will make the task of serving people “is more difficult,” said SSA. All Social Security recipients, including those who are not affected by the new law, will face delays and waiting increases, since the SSA maintains with the new workload, according to the agency.
“We thank the public for his patience,” he added.
People who call SSA’s free number play a message on the Social Security Education Law, with the aim of avoiding long and frustrating waiting times for people looking for information about the new law. However, more than 7,000 people every day still choose to wait to talk to a person, creating a logjam that is only expected to get worse in the coming weeks and months.
Signed by law In December by former President Joe BidenThe Social Security Education Law expands the benefits for millions by eliminating two federals policies which prohibited employees with a public pension to raise their complete benefits under the Federal Retirement Program and that reduced Benefits for surviving spouses and family members of these workers.
The increase in benefits under the new law would be retroactive until December 2023. As a result, eligible recipients who previously received partial benefits will obtain a full retroactive payment until a year ago.
The processing of the changes is complex and a large part of the work must be done manually on a case -by -case basis, SSA said. The benefits of some people will increase very little, while others could be looking at more than $ 1,000 more per month, he said.
The White House of Biden had linked the expected monthly average increase as a result of the law in $ 360 for more than 2.5 million social security beneficiaries.
People with public pensions whose benefits of Social Security were previously penalized. up to date in your profile in Ssa.gov. The SSA will communicate if necessary, but there is no need to re -apply the benefits of social security, according to the agency.