In a celebratory email sent to Americans across the country, the Social Security Administration applauded the passage of the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill, a landmark piece of legislation that delivers long-awaited tax relief to millions of older Americans.” The email went on to say, “The bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits, providing meaningful and immediate relief to seniors who have spent a lifetime contributing to our nation’s economy.”

The Social Security Board of Trustees today released its annual report on the financial status of the Social Security Trust Funds. The combined reserves of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASI and DI) Trust Funds are projected to have enough dedicated revenue to pay all scheduled benefits and associated administrative costs until 2034, one year earlier than projected last year, with 81 percent of benefits payable at that time.

The OASI Trust Fund is projected to become depleted in 2033, the same year as last year’s estimate, with 77 percent of benefits payable at that time. The DI Trust Fund reserves are not projected to become depleted during the 75-year projection period.

In an exclusive interview with the Wall Street Journal, Frank Bisignano, the newly confirmed SSA Commissioner, said that although Elon Musk may be out, DOGE is alive and well at SSA and will be carrying the agency into the digital age. Although staffing has been reduced to 52,000 from 58,000 (and nearly 68,000 in 2010), Bisignano said he is focused on agency objectives that prioritize enhancing customer service, reducing waste, fraud, and abuse, and optimizing its workforce towards direct public service.

SSA released an emergency message to employees that starting April 25, 2025, the withholding rate on overpayments would be 50%.

The change comes less than two months after SSA announced it would reinstate a longstanding policy of withholding 100 percent of benefits from people it determines had been overpaid. That reversed guidelines implemented last year to cap such clawbacks at 10 percent of monthly payments. The 50 percent withholding applies to overpayments of retirement benefits, survivor benefits, family benefits and Social Security Disability Insurance(SSDI) of which recipients are notified after April 25. Most prior overpayments of those benefits will remain subject to the 10 percent cap, as will any overpayments of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), regardless of when they happened.

The SSA Press Office has been in overdrive lately squelching rumors and impressing upon the public the Trump Administration’s commitment to Social Security. In this latest press release it lays out myriad accomplishments over Trump’s first 100 days in office. Here’s a summary.

Progress on the Social Security Fairness Act

SSA has made significant strides in implementing the Social Security Fairness Act, having paid over $14.8 billion in retroactive payments to more than 2.2 million individuals affected by the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset.

Cost avoidance and efficiency initiatives

SSA has identified over $1 billion in cost avoidance or efficiencies for fiscal year 2025 through new, common-sense approaches in areas such as payroll, information technology, contracts and grants, real property, printing, travel, and purchase card policies.

With a little over a week left to go in the month, The Social Security Administration (SSA) has announced that it is reinstating National Social Security Month—a public awareness campaign held in April each year that is dedicated to helping Americans access their benefits. The agency last observed National Social Security Month in 2019, during President Trump’s first term. The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of National Social Security Month in 2020, and the Biden Administration never resumed the observance.

“President Trump has promised to protect Americans’ hard-earned Social Security benefits so that all eligible individuals can access them,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. Resuming National Social Security Month further aligns the SSA workforce with President Trump’s principle that government must serve The People—and at SSA that means helping all Americans access their benefits in office, over the phone, and online.”

In another head-spinning reversal, SSA has cancelled plans to require identity verification either online or in person for people applying for benefits or changing their direct deposit information. Yesterday the Washington Post reported that SSA would be installing a new fraud detecting tool that flags potentially fraudulent incoming calls to SSA, and that unless a caller is flagged, identity may once again be verified over the phone.

In its continuing DOGE-inspired efforts to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, the Social Security Administration is changing the way it is verifying identity. People who want to file an application for benefits or change their direct-deposit information will now need to verify their identity through their Social Security account using login.gov or ID.me. If they are unable or unwilling to do this, they must visit a local office to have their identity verified in person by an SSA representative, making an appointment in advance by calling 800-772-1213. Please see this newsletter for more on how to open a Social Security account.

The latest news on Elon Musk’s foray into Social Security is his recruitment of Antonio Gracias, a private equity investor, who is digging into the way Social Security is financed. First reported in the New York Times, Gracias was quoted as saying there were “material weaknesses” in the system.

The Times article correctly explains: “The Social Security trust funds grew over decades as Americans paid more taxes into the program than they took out in benefits. Tax revenue submitted to the trust funds did not sit there; the federal government instead used the cash to pay its regular expenses over time. In return, the Treasury gave Social Security special bonds that it could redeem to help pay for the program in the future.”

The Social Security Administration (SSA) today shared its significant progress to quickly implement the Social Security Fairness Act. Through March 4, 2025, SSA has already paid 1,127,723 people more than $7.5 billion in retroactive payments. The retroactive payments are the result of the repeal of the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO). The average retroactive payment so far is $6,710.

According to a new press release, SSA “continues to make good on President Trump’s promise to protect American taxpayers from unnecessary spending while continuing to ensure it delivers on its mission.”

The following message was sent to agency employees February 27: “The Social Security Administration (SSA) will soon implement agency-wide organizational restructuring that will include significant workforce reductions. Through these massive reorganizations, offices that perform functions not mandated by statute may be prioritized for reduction-in-force actions that could include abolishment of organizations and positions, directed reassignments, and reductions in staffing. The agency may reassign employees from non-mission critical positions to mission critical direct service positions (e.g., field offices, teleservice centers, processing centers). Reassignments may be involuntary and may require retraining for new workloads.”

Actions Support the Social Security Fairness Act

Today, the Social Security Administration announced it is immediately beginning to pay retroactive benefits and will increase monthly benefit payments to people whose benefits have been affected by the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO). These provisions reduced or eliminated the Social Security benefits for over 3.2 million people who receive a pension based on work that was not covered by Social Security (a “non-covered pension”) because they did not pay Social Security taxes. The Social Security Fairness Act ends WEP and GPO.

“Social Security’s aggressive schedule to start issuing retroactive payments in February and increase monthly benefit payments beginning in April supports President Trump’s priority to implement the Social Security Fairness Act as quickly as possible,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. “The agency’s original estimate of taking a year or more now will only apply to complex cases that cannot be processed by automation. The American people deserve to get their due benefits as quickly as possible.”

Following the sudden resignation of Michelle King on February 16 due to a clash with Elon Musk and his DOGE team over access to Social Security’s extensive database of personal information including Social Security numbers, bank account information and, in the case of disability beneficiaries, medical records, Leland Dudek was appointed new Acting Commissioner. Dudek, who was a manager in charge of Social Security’s anti-fraud office, will serve while Trump’s nominee for Commissioner, Frank Bisignano, is being vetted by the Senate.

In a statement Dudek promised openness, transparency, and accountability. He is supportive of DOGE’s efforts to identify fraud, waste.

SSA maintains a webpage on the Social Security Fairness Act, which it updates periodically. The latest update was January 24. Here are some of the highlights.

Not every teacher, firefighter, police officer or other public employee who worked in a noncovered job will be affected by the law. The ones who are affected fall into two categories. 1) Those who also worked in Social Security-covered jobs and whose Social Security benefits have been (or would have been) reduced for the WEP. The removal of the WEP under the new law will cause their Social Security benefit to increase. If they never worked in a covered job and therefore never qualified for Social Security on their own work record, this part of the law will not apply to them. 2) Those who are (or were) married and entitled to spousal or survivor benefits. Previously, their spousal or survivor benefit would have been reduced by two-thirds of their pension amount under the GPO. The new law nullifies this reduction and allows full spousal or survivor benefits to be paid to people who worked in noncovered jobs. A person whose current or prior marital status would not entitle them to a spousal or survivor benefit anyway would not be affected by this part of the new law.

On January 5 President Biden signed into law the Social Security Fairness Act eliminating the WEP and GPO for clients who worked in jobs not covered by Social Security. The passage and signing of the Act was a feel-good moment for politicians, who hailed it as a way for everyone to get their “fair share” and be able to “retire with economic security and dignity,” even if there was a certain amount of misrepresentation in the media implying that the workers who had been subject to the WEP had paid into the system their entire careers. This, as we know, is not true. A person who paid into Social Security for 30 years or more was never subject to the WEP. It was only those who had worked in noncovered jobs that DIDN’T pay into Social Security whose benefits based on other, covered earnings were reduced. In any case, the time for debate is over. The WEP and GPO have been repealed, and now it’s time to get the word out to affected clients.

In one of its last acts of the year, the Senate passed the Social Security Fairness Act, which eliminates the WEP and GPO for people who worked in noncovered jobs. The bill now goes to President Biden for his signature.

As you know, the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) applies to people who worked in a job that did not pay into Social Security and who expect to receive a pension from that job, while also working long enough in a Social Security-covered job (10 years) to receive a Social Security benefit based on that work. The WEP reduces the first bend point in the PIA formula from .90 to .40, essentially reducing their Social Security benefit by about $600. Alerting clients to the WEP has been a big part of Savvy Social Security planning, as the WEP reduction is not reflected on clients’ Social Security statement. Without this knowledge, clients would expect their benefit to be as much as $600 more than what they’ll end up receiving.

President-Elect Donald Trump promised not to cut Social Security. During his campaign he even suggested higher-income beneficiaries would be able to keep more of their Social Security income through his proposal to stop taxation of benefits (apparently not considering that eliminating that source of income would cause the Trust Fund to exhaust three years sooner than currently projected). Project 2025, which Trump has distanced himself from but is widely recognized to inform many of his policies, makes no mention of Social Security.

But there is one aspect of Social Security that may be affected by the new Trump administration, and that’s the overall administration of the agency. Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has the Social Security Administration in its sights, even though SSA is one of the most efficient of all government agencies. According to recent testimony by SSA commissioner Martin O’Malley, productivity was up 6.2% in 2024 even as the number of new beneficiaries has been soaring. SSA’s staffing is at a 50-year low. SSA made great strides under O’Malley, reducing average call wait times from 42 minutes to 12 minutes, streamlining procedures for overpayments and underpayments, and reducing wait times for disability approvals.

On November 12 the House passed H.R. 82, the Social Security Fairness Act, which calls for an end to the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset. The vote was decisive, 327-75. It faces an uphill battle in the Senate.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law, it would eliminate both the WEP and GPO for clients who worked in noncovered jobs. According to an actuarial analysis done in July 2022, it would worsen Social Security’s finances and cause the trust fund to exhaust in 2034, one year sooner than current projections.

Social Security checks will be going up by 2.5% in 2025. The increase will take effect in December and be reflected in January checks. Clients will receive their personalized COLA notice by mail in December, or earlier in their online account if they sign up for text or email alerts.

The Social Security wage base will be going up to $176,100, from the current $168,600. This increase is based on the rise in the national average wage index, which rose by 4.43%. The earnings test threshold will be $23,400 ($1,950 per month), up from $22,320 ($1,860 per month). The FRA-year threshold will be $62,160 ($5,180 per month, up from $59,520 ($4,960 per month).