On Jan. 5, President Biden signed into law the Social Security Fairness Act, which will provide new or additional Social Security benefits for about 3 million individuals who receive government pensions from jobs not covered by Social Security. Though criticized by liberal, centrist and conservative Social Security policy experts, the legislation was popular among elected officials and cleared the House and Senate with large bipartisan majorities.
President-elect Trump also supported the legislation, and it will fall to his administration to actually make the new benefit structure a reality. This will be a challenge, partly because of the chaotic legislative process that brought the law into effect.
The legislation was introduced two years ago by Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) but received limited attention until last fall. Circumventing the committee structure and regular process, Graves filed a successful discharge petition in September of last year to bring the bill to the floor for a vote. This was controversial among Graves’s fellow Republicans, and there was even an attempt by some to table the legislation in a sparsely attended, pro forma session of the House.
The Senate ultimately received the legislation in late November, and it was initially unclear whether it would receive a vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) ended that speculation by announcing at a labor rally that it would receive a vote as one of the last acts of the 118th Congress.
This hurried process allowed for little discussion of the practical details associated with implementing the legislation. Schumer, late in the debate, tried to amend the legislation’s effective date, but the amendments were withdrawn. In the end, the law retained the same effective date that was in Graves’s legislation from two years ago.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) will now need to quickly scramble and begin issuing large back payments to millions of individuals.
Complicating the issue, SSA received its administrative budget via a continuing resolution with no provision for the potentially large start-up costs to implement the legislation. SSA’s administrative budget has been in sharp decline over several years, and the agency recently testified before Congress that it now has “one of the lowest staffing levels in 50 years.”
It is unlikely SSA has the bandwidth to implement the new benefit structure seamlessly, quickly and correctly.
SSA’s administrative challenge is magnified by the difficulty in communicating to the public about the new law. According to the Congressional Research Service, most state and local government workers (and all federal workers hired in 1984 or later) are in jobs covered by Social Security. Pensioners who worked in covered employment in their government jobs will not receive increased Social Security benefits from the law, but many will mistakenly believe they are due additional payments.
SSA staff will expend substantial work time dealing with confused — and possibly upset — members of the public.
The agency will be tempted to communicate that the public does not need to contact SSA because the affected pensioners are already in their computer systems and the new benefits will be automatically processed. But this will not always be true.
Prior to the law, individuals affected by the Government Pension Offset may not have been eligible to receive any Social Security spouse or survivor payments. A number of these individuals simply did not file for Social Security benefits because there was no point and, as a result, they are not in SSA’s computer systems.
The Congressional Budget Office expects SSA will have to process new applications as a result of the legislation and the new applications will lead to an “extra” 70,000 people on the rolls in the last year of the budget office’s projection period.
These will be administratively expensive applications for SSA to process. SSA does not have an online application for survivor benefits, and both spouse and surviving spouse applications require the legal documentation of relationships (perhaps from many years in the past).
To make the best of the situation, SSA should think clearly about a communication strategy. It will need to achieve the twin goals of minimizing contact from members of the public unaffected by the law and maximizing contact with those who need to take action (that is, file for benefits).
SSA may wish to enlist the help of national organizations, such as AARP, as well as smaller organizations that represent government workers and retirees.
These organizations may also wish to initiate communication on their own. They can also emphasize that members of the public should contact members of Congress for help via the Capitol Switchboard. All congressional offices offer constituent services and should be able answer questions and help resolve complicated benefit cases.
Finally, SSA should present Congress with estimates of the start-up costs associated with implementing the new law, and Congress should consider adjusting the agency’s administrative budget when the current continuing resolution ends in March. Without some adjustment, SSA will once again find itself in a “rob Peter to pay Paul” situation, where some members of the public receive poor service so that others can be served.
David A. Weaver, Ph.D., is an economist and retired federal employee who has authored a number of studies on the Social Security program. His views do not reflect the views of any organization.
