The Social Security Administration (SSA) has reportedly issued an update for benefit recipients under the Social Security Fairness Act, stating it has completed cases for nearly 3 million Americans.
Yahoo Finance senior columnist Kerry Hannon comes on Wealth to explain who will be most affected by this updated and the cause in the lag for adjusted Social Security payment access.
Also read Kerry Hannon's reporting on the US Department of Education's plans to garnish Social Security benefits from people with student loans in default.
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Carrie, while we have you, the Social Security Administration says it processed 91% of cases related to a new law that boosts some Americans monthly benefits and provides lump sum retroactive payments for nearly 3 million people. Who is affected and what's happening with the remaining 9% of cases?
That's right, Brad. It's a small percentage they still have to push through, but this is something they started making these retroactive payments and bumping people up their benefit check. Some as much as $1,000, which is it could be a tiny amount up to $1,000 and um they were done automatically. They started. They say by November they'll have everyone done. The ones that are still lagging behind have to be done manually. So let me remind people what this is. It's for individuals who have worked as teachers, policemen, firemen, that sort of thing. And and what it is is they have access to um the government pension. But during their course of their careers, they also worked in jobs where they did pay into Social Security. Could have been summer jobs, side gigs, whatever. So they're entitled to social security and when this law was passed, uh that it it started to roll back to say, hey, these folks do deserve to get some of their benefits. So it is happening. It's moving slowly for just some people that need to be done manually, but um it does provide a bump for for these social security checks for those who came who fell into that category of having both a government pension as well as having paid into social security.
Carrie, thanks so much. Appreciate it.