More than 3.2 million Social Security recipients will receive one-time retroactive payments and higher monthly benefit checks due to a new law.

The Social Security Administration said it will immediately start the payments for people covered under the Social Security Fairness Act signed into law in late January. The bill repealed two previous policies – the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset. According to CNBC, WEP impacted workers who received pension benefits from work where Social Security taxes were not withheld, resulting in smaller retirement benefits. GPO covered individuals with public pensions from jobs that didn’t take out Social Security taxes who lost access to their spouse’s Social Security benefits, including deceased and ex-spouses.

When will higher payments start?

SSA started its “aggressive” retroactive repayment plans last month.

“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,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security.

Those benefiting from the new law include some teachers, firefighters and police officers in many states, federal employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System and people whose work has been covered by a foreign social security system.

State and local public employees who pay into Social Security are not covered by WEP or GPO and will not receive the benefit increase.

Most will receive a retroactive payment because the offsets no longer applied as of January 2024. Those one-time payments will be issued by the end of March and deposited into the bank account on record with Social Security.

Many will also receive higher monthly benefits that will be paid with the first April check. The increase will vary from person to person, the agency said, based on the type of Social Security benefit received and the amount of the person’s pension.

The monthly increase will range from “very little” to more than $1,000 per month, the agency said.

Those impacted by the changes will receive a letter from the Social Security Administration. Beneficiaries are urged to wait until April to inquire about the status of their retroactive payment and after April for questions related to higher monthly payments.