Compliance February 6, 2025

Department of Labor Secretary Nominee Gets Confirmation Hearing Date

While she has not been publicly outspoken about retirement policy, Chavez-DeRemer has been more active on the employer health plan side of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, including co-sponsoring legislation addressing group health care cost transparency.

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Lori M. Chavez-DeRemer, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Labor, has received a hearing date for her confirmation.

The former Oregon representative will appear before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Wednesday, February 12, at 10 a.m.

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Last month, Trump named Vince Micone as acting secretary of labor until Chavez-DeRemer is confirmed. Micone was previously the deputy assistant secretary for operations in the DOL’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management.

Chavez-DeRemer is considered an unusual selection for a Republican secretary of labor, as she—a former House member from a state that leans Democratic—has previously both taken on health care benefits and taken a pro-union stance. Chavez-DeRemer was, notably, one of three Republicans to sponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2023, which sought to make it easier for workers to unionize.

Her opposition to state “right-to-work” laws may come as a concern to some Senate Republicans, and Senator Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, has already spoken out against Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination.

While she has not been publicly outspoken about retirement policy, Chavez-DeRemer has been more active on the employer health plan side of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, including co-sponsoring legislation addressing group health care cost transparency.

Chavez-DeRemer must be cleared by the Senate panel before the full Senate can consider her nomination.

The live hearing can be viewed on the Senate HELP Committee’s website.

The hearing was announced on the same day that government employee unions and labor groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in anticipation of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency temporary organization attempting to gain access to DOL systems containing sensitive information. The complaint, which names Micone, claims DOL officials have directed staff to give the DOGE access to anything it requests, regardless of security protocols.

The lawsuit comes after retiree advocacy groups and public employee unions sued the Department of the Treasury for sharing confidential data with the DOGE on Monday.

Compliance February 5, 2025

Potential Implementation Delays Face Social Security Fairness Act

Under the SSA’s current budget, the agency expects it could take more than one year to adjust benefits and pay all retroactive benefits.

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The Social Security Administration released a frequently asked questions document last week, providing more details on the recently passed Social Security Fairness Act, signed into law by former President Joe Biden.

Implementation of the law poses some challenges for the SSA, as the law did not provide money to implement the law, and it requires the SSA to adjust benefits for more than 3 million people.

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The legislation repealed two changes from the Social Security Amendments of 1983, which had authorized the Windfall Elimination Provision and amended the Government Pension Offset to reduce Social Security benefits for workers and spouses if they were covered by an employer that does not withhold Social Security taxes.

As a result of the new law, Social Security benefits are projected to increase for more than 3 million public employees and beneficiaries, and many unions representing public employees saw this as a huge win for public service workers. Meanwhile, others have argued that the repeal of the two provisions will cost the Social Security trust funds almost $200 billion over 10 years and accelerate by six months the insolvency of the trust funds, already projected to be depleted by 2035.

According to the SSA’s new FAQ, since the law’s effective date is retroactive, the SSA must adjust people’s past benefits, as well as their future benefits. Under the SSA’s current budget, the agency expects it could take more than one year to adjust benefits and pay all retroactive benefits.

The WEP and GPO apply to benefits paid through December 2023.  Benefits payable for January 2024 and later should be calculated without those provisions.

More than 7,000 people each day have been calling the SSA’s national toll-free number and are choosing to hold so they can speak to a representative about the act, the FAQ stated. The SSA anticipates that these calls, as well as visitors and appointments in local offices, will continue to increase over the coming weeks and months.

“Helping people with this new and unfunded workload is made more difficult by SSA’s ongoing staffing shortages, including operating under a hiring freeze since November 2024,” the FAQ stated. “This hiring freeze is likely to continue. All SSA customers, including those not affected by the act, will face delays and increased wait times as SSA prioritizes this new workload.”

Because processing the benefits changes is complex, the SSA’s analysis showed that much of the work must be done manually and on an individual, case-by-case basis. The SSA is currently processing pending or new claims involving future benefits and developing procedures and automated solutions for computing the retroactive benefits.

The SSA also reminded workers in the FAQ that not every teacher, firefighter, police officer or public worker will receive a benefit increase because of the new law. Only people who receive a pension based on work not covered by Social Security may see benefit increases. Most state and local public employees—about 72%—work in Social Security-covered employment, meaning they pay Social Security taxes and were not affected by the WEP or GPO. These individuals will not receive a benefit increase due to the law, according to the FAQ.

The SSA stated it cannot provide an estimated timeframe as to when it will adjust workers’ past or future benefits, but it will continue to provide updates on this webpage.

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