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Why benefit increases from Social Security Fairness Act may take time

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More than 3.2 million individuals scored a legislative victory due to a new law that will increase the Social Security benefits for which they are eligible.

However, many of those individuals now face a lengthy wait for the extra benefit money coming to them.

The Social Security Fairness Act was signed into law on Jan. 5 by then President Joe Biden. The law eliminates certain provisions — the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset — that previously reduced Social Security benefits for people who receive pensions from non-covered employment.

The changes will result in higher monthly payments ranging from $360 to $1,190, depending on their circumstances, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated. In addition, the law also provides lump-sum payments for those benefit increases dating back to benefits payable for January 2024 and after.

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The Social Security Administration is already helping some affected beneficiaries, the agency stated on its website. However, it cannot commit to a timeline as to when it will have processed the benefit increases for everyone affected.

“Under SSA’s current budget, SSA expects that it could take more than one year to adjust benefits and pay all retroactive benefits,” the Social Security Administration’s website states.

SSA will struggle without more money, expert says

On Feb. 5, a bipartisan group of Senators sent a letter to Acting Social Security Commissioner Michelle King urging for swift implementation of the benefit changes affecting certain teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public servants.

“We call for the immediate implementation of this legislation to provide prompt relief to the millions of Americans impacted by WEP and GPO,” the Senators wrote.

However, some experts say the agency needs more financial resources to make that happen.

“Congress either provides funding to cover the implementation costs, or SSA is going to struggle to work these cases,” said David A. Weaver, a former Social Security Administration executive who currently teaches statistics at the University of South Carolina.

The Social Security Fairness Act was voted into law with broad bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. Yet retirement policy experts have strongly criticized the new policy. One sticking point is the cost — estimated by the CBO to tally $200 billion over 10 years — with no offsets to help pay that increase.

That outlay will move Social Security’s trust fund depletion date six months closer, according to estimates.

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The Social Security Administration is funded through a continuing resolution set to expire in the middle of March.

“When Congress addresses that … it’d be useful for Congress to increase SSA’s budget to account for the implementation costs,” Weaver said.

At a minimum, the agency will need around $200 million to implement the Social Security Fairness Act’s changes, he said.

The last time there was a similar change was with the Senior Citizens Freedom to Work Act of 2000, in which Social Security beneficiaries who had reached full retirement age no longer saw benefit reductions due to earned income.

That law affected about 1 million beneficiaries and cost about $65 million to implement in today’s dollars, according to Weaver. The new Social Security Fairness Act will affect about three times as many beneficiaries, he said.

The Social Security Administration’s staffing is currently at a 50-year low, said Dan Adcock, director of government relations and policy at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

Prior to President Donald Trump taking office, it had been suggested that additional funding would help the Social Security Administration to fulfill the demands of the WEP and GPO repeal.

If instead the appropriations from Congress to the agency are reduced, the implementation of the new law may take even longer than one year, Adcock said.

Why new law may be complex to implement

As the Social Security Administration works to implement the law’s new benefit changes, the agency will face some pain points that may contribute to delays, according to Weaver.

When the Social Security Fairness Act was first introduced in 2023, the bill called for the changes to go into effect starting with benefits payable for January 2024.

As lawmakers rushed the legislation through in late December, that effective date was not changed. Calculating those back payments will create more work for the Social Security Administration, according to Weaver.

The effective date also presents other potential complications. For example, in any given year, 4% of Social Security beneficiaries die. Consequently, the Social Security Administration will be tasked with identifying more than 100,000 beneficiaries who are affected by the law who may have died in 2024 and distributing money to their survivors, Weaver said.

Moreover, individuals who were affected by the Government Pension Offset, which reduced Social Security benefits for spouses and widows of people who received non-covered pensions, may have previously been told they were not eligible for benefits, Weaver explained. As a result, in some cases they may have never applied for benefits. For those who did apply, their personal addresses or bank account information on file with the agency may be outdated, he added.

For those individuals affected by the GPO, the Social Security Administration will likely have to do a lot of work to find basic information on how to pay them, Weaver said.

For survivors and spouses who are newly eligible for benefits, the agency will also have to confirm those relationships.

The Social Security Administration may be able to automate 95% of the Windfall Elimination Provision cases, Weaver said. Yet some unusual cases may crop up, for example if a beneficiary was also affected by the earnings test. That will require manual input from Social Security employees, and therefore more time to process, Weaver said.

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House Republican bill boosts maximum child tax credit to $2,500

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House Republicans on Thursday advanced President Donald Trump‘s “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill, which includes a bigger child tax credit for some families.

If enacted, the House bill would make permanent the maximum $2,000 credit passed via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, of 2017. Without action from Congress, that tax break will revert to $1,000 after 2025.

The House bill would make the highest child tax credit $2,500 from 2025 through 2028. After that, the credit’s top value would revert to $2,000 and be indexed for inflation.

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However, the House-approved child tax credit hike wouldn’t provide relief to the lowest-earning families, according to some policy experts.

The provision could still change in the Senate.

House Republicans child tax credit changes

Typically, very-low-income families with kids don’t owe federal taxes, which means they can’t claim the full child tax credit. 

Plus, under the House proposal, both parents must have a Social Security number if filing jointly and claiming the tax break for an eligible child.

“This bill is taking the child tax credit away from 4.5 million children who are U.S. citizens or lawfully present,” Cox told CNBC.

How to calculate the child tax credit

For 2025, the child tax credit is currently worth up to $2,000 per qualifying child under age 17 with a valid Social Security number. Up to $1,700 is “refundable” for 2025, which delivers a maximum of $1,700 once the credit exceeds taxes owed.  

After your first $2,500 of earnings, the child tax credit value is 15% of adjusted gross income, or AGI, until the tax break reaches that peak of $2,000 per child. The tax break starts to phase out once AGI exceeds $400,000 for married couples filing together or $200,000 for all other taxpayers.   

“Almost everyone gets it,” but middle-income families currently see the biggest benefit, said Elaine Maag, senior fellow in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. 

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A bipartisan House bill passed in February 2024 aimed to expand access to the child tax credit and retroactively boosted the refundable portion for 2023, which would have impacted families during the 2024 filing season. 

The bill failed in the Senate in August, but Republicans expressed interest in revisiting the issue.

At the time of the vote, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, described it as a “blatant attempt to score political points.” Crapo, who is now chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in August that Senate Republicans have concerns about the policy, but are willing to negotiate a “child tax credit solution that a majority of Republicans can support.”

Although House Republicans previously supported the expansion for lower-earners, the current plan “shifts directions and focuses the benefits on middle and high-income families,” Maag said. 

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What House Republican ‘big beautiful’ budget bill means for your money

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Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) speaks during a House Committee on Ways and Means in the Longworth House Office Building on April 30, 2024 in Washington, D.C.

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images News | Getty Images

House Republicans on Thursday advanced a multi-trillion-dollar tax and spending package that could have sweeping impacts on household finances.

If enacted, the legislation — called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — could make permanent President Donald Trump‘s 2017 tax cuts, while adding new provisions that could significantly overhaul student borrowing, health savings accounts and car ownership, among other changes.

With control of Congress, Republicans can use “budget reconciliation” to pass the package, which only needs a simple majority in the Senate. But the bill, which is more than 1,000 pages long, is likely to see changes in the upper chamber before Trump signs it into law.

Here are some of the provisions that may affect your wallet.

Higher ‘SALT’ deduction limit

Enacted via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, of 2017, there’s currently a $10,000 limit on the deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT. Filers must itemize deductions to claim it.

The bill would raise the SALT cap to $40,000 in 2025 and phase out the tax break for incomes over $500,000. The SALT limit and income phaseout would increase annually by 1% from 2026 through 2033.

Before TCJA, the SALT deduction was unlimited, but the so-called alternative minimum tax curbed the benefit for some wealthier Americans.

The bill would also reduce itemized deductions for certain taxpayers in the 37% income tax bracket, which could limit the benefit of the higher SALT cap.

“Any changes to lift the cap would primarily benefit higher earners,” Garrett Watson, director of policy analysis at the Tax Foundation, wrote in an analysis on Tuesday.

Bigger child tax credit

Trump’s 2017 tax cuts temporarily boosted the maximum child tax credit to $2,000 from $1,000, an increase that will expire after 2025 without action from Congress.

The House bill would make the $2,000 credit permanent and raise the cap to $2,500 from 2025 through 2028. After 2028, the credit’s highest value would revert to $2,000, and be indexed for inflation.

House advances President Trump's tax & spending bill

Medicaid, SNAP cuts

To help pay for the tax relief in the bill, House Republicans have included roughly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid health coverage and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, that are the largest in the programs’ histories.

As a result of the changes in the bill, which include stricter work requirements to qualify for the programs, 14 million individuals may lose health coverage, while 3 million households may go without food assistance, according to Accountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

While Medicaid work requirements had been slated to go into effect in 2029 per earlier versions of the proposal, House lawmakers moved that date up to December 2026 in last-minute negotiations.

‘Bonus’ deduction for older adults

Catherine Delahaye | Digitalvision | Getty Images

Low- to middle-income seniors will be able to deduct an additional $4,000 on their tax returns, based on the terms of the House bill. The full deduction, dubbed a “bonus” in the legislation, would apply to individual tax filers with up to $75,000 in modified adjusted gross income and married couples with up to $150,000.

The tax deduction reduces the amount of seniors’ income subject to taxes, and therefore may also bring down the taxes that they owe.

The deduction is in lieu of the elimination of taxes on Social Security benefits, a proposal touted by Trump on the campaign trail. Changes to Social Security are prohibited in reconciliation legislation.

Health savings account expansions

There are many provisions in the GOP bill tied to HSAs, tax-advantaged accounts used to pay for health care. They carry powerful financial benefits for those with access. 

The legislation aims to both expand households’ ability to contribute to HSAs and to use those funds without financial penalty, said William McBride, chief economist at the Tax Foundation. The HSA measures would kick in starting in 2026. 

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One tweak allows households to use HSAs to pay for expenses tied to sports and fitness, like gym memberships or instruction. Eligible expenses are capped at $500 a year for individuals and $1,000 for couples.

The bill also doubles the annual contribution limits for low and middle earners, to $8,600 for individuals and $17,100 for married couples in 2025. (This applies to individuals who make less than $75,000 per year and $150,000 for married couples.)

New ‘Trump Accounts’ for child savings

MoMo Productions | Stone | Getty Images

Trump’s tax package also includes a new savings account for children with a one-time deposit of $1,000 from the federal government.

Funded by the Department of the Treasury, “Trump Accounts” — previously known as “Money Accounts for Growth and Advancement” or “MAGA Accounts” — can later be used for education expenses or credentials, the down payment on a first home or as capital to start a small business.

If the bill passes as drafted, parents will be able to contribute up to $5,000 a year and the balance will be invested in a diversified fund that tracks a U.S.-stock index. Earnings grow tax-deferred, and qualified withdrawals are taxed at the long-term capital-gains rate.

Reduced student loan benefits

The bill would eliminate subsidized federal student loans, meaning that the government would no longer cover the interest on the debt while borrowers are in school or during other key periods. The change could increase a student’s loan balance at graduation by about 15%, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

While the U.S. Department of Education’s current income-driven repayment plans for student loan borrowers typically conclude in debt forgiveness after 20 or 25 years, the new GOP plan wouldn’t lead to debt cancellation for 30 years in some cases.

“A 30-year repayment term means indentured servitude,” Kantrowitz said.

The legislation would also nix the unemployment deferment and economic hardship deferment, both of which student loan borrowers use to pause their payments during periods of financial difficulty.

Car loan interest deduction

Andresr | E+ | Getty Images

The bill creates a tax deduction for car owners who pay interest on an auto loan, for tax years 2025 through 2028. 

The tax break is worth up to $10,000 for annual loan interest on passenger vehicles, such as a car, minivan, van, sport utility vehicle, pickup truck, motorcycle, all-terrain or recreational vehicle. It’s an above-the-line decoration, meaning taxpayers can get it even if they don’t itemize their tax deductions.

There are some restrictions: The deduction’s value starts to decrease when a taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income exceeds $100,000, or $200,000 for married couples filing a joint tax return. Also, the car must be assembled in the U.S. to qualify for the tax break. 

Tax break on tip income

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EV, clean energy tax credits 

The House bill would mean an early termination of tax breaks for consumers who buy or lease electric vehicles, and others for households that make their homes more energy-efficient.

Many of these credits have been available in some form for decades. The Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act extended or enhanced them. 

The House legislation would end the tax breaks after 2025, with few exceptions, about seven years earlier than under current law.

Those on the chopping block include a $7,500 tax credit for new EVs and leases, and a $4,000 credit for used EVs. 

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Education Department employees must be reinstated by Trump: Judge

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Sarah Jo Marcotte, an educator from Vermont, holds a sign that reads “Here for my students!! Cuts Hurt.” outside of the U.S. Department of Education on March 20, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to reinstate more than 1,300 U.S. Department of Education employees.

“The Department must be able to carry out its functions and its obligations,” as well as “other relevant statutes as mandated by Congress,” U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston wrote in the injunction.

The U.S. Department of Education announced a reduction in force on March 11 that would have gutted the agency’s staff by a half.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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