B. CHANGES IN LAW AND POLICY AFFECTING SOCIAL SECURITY SINCE THE 2024 REPORT Since the Trustees submitted the 2024 report to Congress, there have been two changes in law, policy, or regulation that are expected to have significant financial effects on the OASDI program. On April 18, 2024, the Social Security Administration (SSA) published a final rule in the Federal Register titled Intermediate Improvement to the Disability Adjudication Process, Including How We Consider Past Work. This regulation reduces the time period, from 15 to 5 years, that SSA considers when determining whether an individual’s past work is relevant for the purposes of making disability determinations and decisions, and makes other minor revisions to the regulations related to past relevant work. Implementation of this final rule is expected to increase disability awards and incidence rates to a small degree and, in turn, reduce labor force participation slightly. This regulation has a significant negative effect on the DI trust fund ratio over the short-range projection period and a small but significant negative effect on the actuarial balance for the DI Trust Fund over the long-range projection period. The Social Security Fairness Act of 2023, Public Law 118-273, was signed into law on January 5, 2025. This law repeals the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset for benefits payable for months after December 2023. These two provisions had reduced or eliminated the Social Security benefits of individuals who receive a pension based on work that was not covered by Social Security. With their repeal, Social Security benefits will increase for certain people who worked in jobs that were not covered by Social Security, including some state and local employees, federal employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System, and some people who worked in non-U.S. employment. Enactment of this change in law is estimated to have a significant negative effect on the OASI Trust Fund over both the short-range and long-range periods. Sections IV.A.4 and IV.B.6 of this report provide further description of the magnitude of effects on the financial status of the OASDI program over the short-range and long-range projection periods, respectively.
