Social Security employees are warning that changes in priorities could lead to delays or stopped checks for thousands of Americans. But amid DOGE dramas, budget stand-offs and court battles, the warnings are not coming for the reason you may expect.
Experts say The Social Security Fairness Act, signed by President Joe Biden when he was in office, is causing delays in other essential tasks as it aims to boost benefits for public servants. The act stipulated backpay for public servants like former teachers or postal workers, who paid into Social Security for their summer or off-hour private sector jobs but weren't fully paid under previous law, per USA Today.
Processing these backpay claims takes extra time and the agency says it's prioritizing about 900,000 complex cases that require manual processing.
Employees at processing centers have been instructed to prioritize Fairness Act payments, leading to delays in addressing other critical issues like Medicaid billing problems.
The agency is under pressure to resolve all Fairness Act claims by July 1 as Social Security commissioner Frank Bisignano told senators during his March confirmation hearing the work will be done “while the weather is warm.” To get that done, workers told USA Today "they were told they cannot help with non-priority issues like overpayment reconsideration, updating direct deposit information, checking on monthly payment rates, and Medicare billing related issues."
And that means while they focus on clearing up extra payments for those public servants covered under the fairness act, other recipients may have longer wait times if they call or visit an office, or their payment requests could be delayed altogether until after July 1.
Still, some say it's worth it to make sure public servants get their due. “Using automation, SSA has already expedited over $15.1 billion in long-delayed retroactive payments to more than 2.3 million individuals affected," White House spokesperson Liz Huston said.