Social Security Fairness Act: WEP & GPO Repeal — What Government Workers Need to Do Now

Published April 2026. Verified against SSA publications and Public Law 118-273.

What changed — and when

On January 5, 2025, President Biden signed the Social Security Fairness Act (Public Law 118-273, H.R. 82).¹ The law did two things:

1. Repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) — which had reduced the Social Security retirement and disability benefits of workers who also received a pension from non-covered employment.
2. Repealed the Government Pension Offset (GPO) — which had reduced or eliminated spousal and survivor Social Security benefits for people receiving government pensions from non-covered work.

The repeal is effective retroactively to January 2024 — the first month WEP and GPO no longer apply.¹

Who is affected

You were likely subject to WEP or GPO if you worked in a job where your employer did not withhold Social Security (FICA) taxes — and you also earned Social Security credits elsewhere or are a spouse/survivor of someone who did. This includes:

• Teachers in states where the public school system has its own pension (CalSTRS, TRS-Georgia, Texas TRS, Illinois TRS, Ohio STRS, etc.) and doesn't pay into Social Security
• State and local government workers in non-covered plans (police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, many county and municipal employees)
• Federal employees under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) — not FERS, which pays into Social Security
• International organization employees with pensions from the World Bank, IMF, UN, and similar entities
• Spouses and surviving spouses of any of the above, who were getting reduced or zero spousal/survivor SS benefits due to GPO

What WEP cost you (and what's now restored)

WEP applied a modified benefit formula that reduced your own Social Security retirement or disability benefit if you had fewer than 30 years of "substantial earnings" under Social Security. The more non-covered pension income you had, the larger the reduction — up to a cap.

Now that WEP is repealed, SSA recalculates your benefit using the standard formula. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the average benefit increase for affected worker beneficiaries at $360 per month.²

Example

A California teacher who also worked 15 years in the private sector might have had a Social Security PIA of $1,400/month but received only $980 after WEP. Post-repeal, that teacher receives the full $1,400 — plus retroactive payments back to January 2024.

What GPO cost you (and what's now restored)

GPO was harsher: it reduced spousal and survivor benefits by two-thirds of the government pension amount. For retirees with large pensions, GPO often eliminated their spousal or survivor SS benefit entirely.

The average estimated benefit increase from GPO repeal:

• $700/month for affected spousal beneficiaries
• $1,190/month for affected surviving spouses

Some surviving spouses who received zero spousal SS income due to GPO are now eligible for full survivor benefits for the first time.²

Example

A retired Illinois teacher whose spouse had been the primary Social Security earner received nothing in survivor benefits after her husband died — GPO eliminated it entirely because her TRS pension exceeded 1.5× his SS benefit. Post-repeal, she can now claim her survivor benefit (100% of his PIA at her FRA, or reduced at 60+) for the rest of her life.

Retroactive payments: where things stand

Because the law applied retroactively to January 2024, affected beneficiaries were owed back payments in addition to higher ongoing monthly benefits.

SSA announced in February 2025 that it would begin processing these payments, and by July 2025, the agency had sent over 3.1 million payments totaling $17 billion — five months ahead of the original schedule.³

If you were already receiving a WEP- or GPO-reduced benefit, SSA recalculated and increased your monthly payment automatically. If you were receiving zero GPO benefit and have not yet applied for spousal or survivor benefits, you need to file a new claim with SSA.

Three situations — what to do

1. You're already receiving reduced Social Security benefits

SSA should have automatically increased your monthly benefit and sent retroactive payments for January 2024 onward. If you haven't seen an increase by now and believe you were WEP/GPO affected, contact SSA directly or create a my Social Security account at ssa.gov to check your payment status.

Even if the immediate recalculation is handled, your claiming strategy may still need revisiting. If you claimed early (at 62) partly because WEP was making SS income small anyway, your now-higher benefit changes the break-even analysis on whether it made sense to claim early.

2. You never applied for Social Security because GPO made it worthless

Many teachers and government workers with large pensions simply never filed for spousal or survivor benefits — because GPO would have eliminated them entirely. If that's you, you need to file now.

There's no automatic retroactive payment if you never filed. You can claim retroactive benefits going back six months from your application date (SSA's standard retroactivity window), but benefits from before that are generally not recoverable. The sooner you file, the less retroactive income you leave on the table.

3. You haven't claimed Social Security yet

This is where the planning opportunity is largest. If you're 60-69 and still deciding when to claim:

• Your WEP-adjusted SS benefit was the input to your break-even analysis. Now that WEP is gone, your actual benefit is higher — which changes every scenario.
• If you're a surviving spouse of a higher earner, GPO repeal may mean survivor benefits are now substantial enough to warrant a coordinated claiming strategy (e.g., claim your own benefit first and switch to survivor at FRA, or vice versa).
• If you're married with a pension-earning spouse, the household claiming optimization now includes a meaningful SS benefit that wasn't in the picture before.

The tax implication most people miss

Higher Social Security income comes with a side effect: more of it may become taxable, and your Medicare premiums may increase.

• Taxable SS formula: Up to 85% of Social Security benefits are subject to federal income tax above $34,000 (single) or $44,000 (married filing jointly) of "combined income" (AGI + nontaxable interest + half of SS).⁴ A $360/month WEP benefit restoration adds $4,320/year to combined income — pushing more existing SS income into the taxable range.
• IRMAA surcharges: Medicare Part B and Part D premiums increase in steps based on MAGI. A meaningful SS benefit increase can cross an IRMAA tier, adding $600-$4,000/year in Medicare premiums per person.

Neither of these negates the value of the repeal — $700/month in restored benefits is still $700/month. But it means you need to model the after-tax, after-Medicare net benefit, not just the gross SS increase.

Why an advisor's analysis is different from a general calculator

The SSA's official "my Social Security" calculator shows your benefit at different claiming ages but doesn't model:

• The interaction between your SS benefit, pension income, and taxable SS formula in each tax year
• Whether Roth conversions before claiming SS can reduce the taxable SS hit
• The optimal coordination between spouses when one has a government pension and one doesn't
• IRMAA cliff avoidance around the benefit restoration
• Whether the restored SS income changes the optimal sequence of drawing from taxable accounts, IRAs, and pension

A claiming decision based on a $1,200/month WEP-reduced benefit is a different analysis than one based on a $1,560/month unreduced benefit. The math changes the break-even age, the survivor benefit value, and the Roth conversion runway.

Get your scenario modeled

The SSFA changed the math for millions of people. If you have a government pension and haven't revisited your Social Security claiming strategy, now is the time — the benefit amounts have changed, the tax implications need modeling, and if you never filed for spousal/survivor benefits, there's retroactive income to capture.

We match you with fee-only advisors who specialize in Social Security optimization. They work for you — no commissions, no product sales.

Sources

1. SSA — Social Security Fairness Act: WEP and GPO Update. Effective date, retroactivity to January 2024, and filing guidance.
2. Kitces — Calculating Impact of WEP and GPO Repeal on Social Security Benefits. CBO average benefit increase estimates: $360/month WEP, $700/$1,190/month GPO.
3. SSA Blog — Social Security Pays Billions of Dollars in Retroactive Payments. 3.1 million payments, $17 billion total, completed July 2025.
4. IRS Topic 423 — Social Security and Equivalent Railroad Retirement Benefits. Taxability thresholds: $34,000 single / $44,000 MFJ combined income.
5. H.R. 82 (118th Congress) — Social Security Fairness Act of 2023. Public Law 118-273, signed January 5, 2025.

Benefit averages are CBO estimates as published in SSA materials and cited in Kitces analysis. Individual benefit changes vary based on years of non-covered work, pension amount, and SS earnings record. Verified as of April 2026.