Social Security Administration says that millions of retired teachers, firefighters, police officers and others with public pension may have to wait for a year or more to withdraw the benefits of the recently passed Social Security Freedom Act.
Newly enacted Law The agency needs to accommodate the profit for more than 3 million people, including the retrospective payment and calculating future benefits. But the law did not provide additional funding or employees to help implement the law or help in dealing with increased charge, Social Security Administration (SSA) noted in one Update Friday.
According to the agency, “SSA's ability to enforce the law on time and day-to-day customer depends on money without affecting the service.” “Although SSA is now helping some affected beneficiaries, under the current budget of SSA, SSA hopes that it may take more than a year to adjust the profit and pay all the retrospective benefits.”
The SSA said that the lack of staffing mixed by a hiring freeze since November 2024 will serve people “more difficult”, SSA said. All social security recipients, not affected by the new law, according to the agency, SSA will face an increase in delay and waiting time with new charge.
“We thank the public for its patience,” said this.
The callers are given a message about the Social Security Freeding Act for the toll-free number of SSA, in which people who get information about the new law are the purpose of avoiding long and disappointing waiting time. Yet each day more than 7,000 people still choose to wait to talk to a person, creating a logzam that is expected to deteriorate only in the coming weeks and months.
Signed in law Former President Joe Biden in DecemberThe Social Security Fairness Act expands the benefits for millions by abolishing two federals Policies Employees were stopped with public pension from collecting their full benefits under the federal retirement program Reduced Benefits of those workers' living spouse and family members.
The benefit of the increase under the new law will be rebel to December 2023. As a result, the eligible recipients who used to receive only partial benefits earlier will receive a full payment retrospective a year ago.
The SSA said that the processing of changes is complex and many work is to be done manually based on the case-case. The benefits of some people will increase very little, while others can see more than $ 1,000 in a month, it said.
The Biden White House expected a average monthly growth as a result of law in $ 360 for more than 2.5 million social security recipients.
People with public pension whose social security benefits were earlier punished should ensure that their name and address Up to date In their profile ssa.govThe SSA will reach, but according to the agency, there is no need to apply again for social security benefits.