On January 5, 2025 the Social Security Fairness Act was signed into law. The law does away with the Government Pension Offset and the Windfall Elimination Provision. These two provisions to Social Security reduced the benefits received by government employees for work that doesn’t pay into Social Security. The largest group of these workers by far is teachers, but this also includes many police officers and firefighters. Previously, the way to get around these reductions was to work the final five years before retiring in a job that both continued to build their teacher/police/fire retirement pension and paid into Social Security (only about a dozen school districts in Texas do this), now that isn’t a necessity (although it will still help).

The Government Pension Offset is similar, but it would impact spouses and surviving spouses who were in government positions that didn’t pay into Social Security, when receiving benefits from a spouse who did pay into Social Security.

The Social Security Fairness Act is the single largest piece of legislation to make retirement easier for teachers. The impact of this will help an estimated 3 million teachers, firefighters, and police officers be able to retire or be more comfortable in their retirement.

This change is retro-active to January 1, 2024. So if you are in this group and have been receiving Social Security Benefits there will be a back-dated payment to catch up on benefits for 2024, then your updated benefit amount will start monthly after that. You do not need to take any action, this will be done automatically, although implementation dates have yet to be announced.

If you have not filed for Social Security benefits, but are eligible to, then you can apply online at ssa.gov/apply.