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Justin Sullivan \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Social Security Fairness Act gave one-time retroactive payments to some beneficiaries. <\/p>\n
Personal income in May dipped for the first time since 2021, according to government data, but people aren’t actually getting paid less.<\/p>\n
Income fell by 0.4% in May after climbing 0.8% in April, but it was a change in Social Security payouts that drove that decline.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe outsize income gain in April was primarily pushed up by a one-time spike in Social Security benefits from the implementation of the Social Security Fairness Act,\u201d said senior director of Moody\u2019s Analytics Dante DeAntonio.<\/p>\n
The Social Security Fairness Act<\/a>, a Biden-era piece of legislation that went into effect at the beginning of this year, increased the benefits for more than 2.8 million former public-sector workers whose jobs were not previously covered by Social Security.<\/p>\n One-time retroactive checks were mailed to beneficiaries in late March and April, giving those individuals a one-time boost in monthly income. That\u2019s why it appeared as though income fell in May.<\/p>\n Starting in May, the increased benefits will be factored in monthly, so the income data for the rest of the year should level off.<\/p>\n A recent report from the Social Security Board of Trustees said that the program\u2019s funds could be depleted<\/a> by 2034.<\/p>\n