What Is the Windfall Elimination Provision? Repeal, Formula, and GPO

The Windfall Elimination Provision was a Social Security formula that reduced retirement or disability benefits for workers who also received a pension from a job that didn’t pay into Social Security. It no longer exists. Congress repealed it through the Social Security Fairness Act, signed on January 5, 2025, and the repeal reaches back to benefits payable for January 2024.¹ If you’re worried WEP will shrink your future check, it won’t. If your benefit was reduced in the past, you’re owed retroactive money.

The Repeal and What It Changed

The Social Security Fairness Act eliminated both WEP and the related Government Pension Offset. It struck the WEP paragraph from 42 U.S.C. § 415(a), removing the formula from the federal code.² December 2023 was the last month any reduction applied.

SSA began issuing adjusted payments on February 25, 2025. By July 2025 the agency had sent more than 3.1 million payments totaling $17 billion in retroactive benefits, and most affected people started receiving their new monthly amount in April 2025.¹

What You Should Do Now

If Your Benefit Was Already Being Reduced

You generally don’t need to do anything. SSA is automatically recalculating benefits and depositing retroactive lump sums covering January 2024 forward, and you’ll receive one or two mailed notices explaining the change. The payment may arrive before the notice.¹

Log into your my Social Security account at ssa.gov to confirm your mailing address and direct deposit information are current. If you can’t use the online account, call SSA at 1-800-772-1213.

If You Never Applied Because of WEP

Some people didn’t file for Social Security at all because WEP would have wiped out most of the benefit. If that’s you, you now need to apply. The repeal didn’t change the rules on how far back a new application can reach: retroactivity for retirement and survivor benefits is generally limited to six months before the month you file.¹ Filing sooner protects more of your back payments.

Medicare Premium Payments

If your WEP reduction was large enough that SSA couldn’t withhold your Medicare premium, you’ve probably been paying Medicare directly. Once your benefit is adjusted upward, Medicare premiums will be deducted from your monthly payment again. If you set up Medicare Easy Pay or online bill pay, cancel those arrangements once you receive your SSA notice so you don’t double-pay.¹

How the Formula Worked

The mechanics still matter if you want to check SSA’s math on your retroactive payment. Social Security calculates benefits using “bend points” that divide your average indexed monthly earnings into brackets. Under normal rules, the first bracket is multiplied by 90 percent, the second by 32 percent, and the third by 15 percent. That 90 percent factor on the lowest bracket makes the program progressive: it replaces more income for people who earned less.²

The problem WEP was written to address was that someone who spent half a career in non-covered work looked like a low earner in SSA’s records, because the non-covered wages didn’t show up. The 1983 amendments dropped that 90 percent factor as low as 40 percent for affected workers.³

The WEP Guarantee

One safeguard capped the damage. The total reduction to your Social Security check could never exceed half of your monthly non-covered pension. If your government pension was $400 a month, the most WEP could take was $200.⁴

The Sliding Scale by Years of Substantial Earnings

How severe the reduction was depended on how many years you paid Social Security taxes on earnings above a “substantial” threshold, a dollar amount that changed annually. With 20 or fewer such years, the multiplier was 40 percent. Each additional year raised it 5 points. At 30 years, you got the full 90 percent and WEP had no effect.⁵

20 years or fewer: 40 percent (maximum reduction)
21 years: 45 percent
22 years: 50 percent
23 years: 55 percent
24 years: 60 percent
25 years: 65 percent
26 years: 70 percent
27 years: 75 percent
28 years: 80 percent
29 years: 85 percent
30 or more years: 90 percent (no reduction)

The year count applies only to benefits through December 2023. From January 2024 forward, every affected worker gets the full 90 percent regardless of work history.

Who Was Affected

WEP applied to workers who met two conditions: they qualified for a Social Security benefit from covered employment, and they also received a pension from a job where neither they nor their employer paid Social Security taxes. The classic examples were state and local government employees in systems that opted out of Social Security decades ago, certain nonprofit workers, and some people with foreign pensions.⁵

Teachers, firefighters, and police officers were among the most commonly affected, especially in states whose public pension systems never joined Social Security. Many held second jobs or earlier private-sector jobs that did pay in, and WEP cut the benefit earned from those covered wages. If a worker had non-covered earnings but never received a pension from that work, WEP didn’t apply. The trigger was always the pension.

WEP and the Government Pension Offset

The two rules are easy to confuse because both involved non-covered pensions and both were repealed together. They hit different benefits.

WEP reduced your own retirement or disability benefit based on your own record. GPO reduced spousal and survivor benefits: if your spouse or deceased spouse earned Social Security and you drew a government pension from non-covered work, GPO subtracted two-thirds of that pension from any spousal or survivor benefit. For many people it erased the spousal benefit entirely.⁶ Both are now gone as of January 2024.

Groups Who Were Already Exempt

Several groups were never subject to WEP even before the repeal. If you fell into one of these categories, your benefits weren’t reduced and you won’t see a retroactive adjustment.

Federal employees hired after December 31, 1983, who are covered by FERS and pay into Social Security.⁷
Workers with 30 or more years of substantial earnings, whose sliding-scale multiplier was already the full 90 percent.⁵
Workers whose non-covered service was entirely before 1957.¹
Nonprofit employees mandatorily covered as of January 1, 1984, provided the employer hadn’t previously terminated a coverage waiver.⁸
Ministers, since payments based on ministerial service weren’t treated as pensions for WEP purposes.⁸
Certain beneficiaries whose benefits were calculated under a Totalization Agreement with another country.⁹

Railroad workers were handled separately. The tier-I component of a railroad annuity could be reduced by WEP, but the Railroad Retirement Board applied it. The SSFA repeal also restored full tier-I amounts for affected railroad retirees retroactive to January 2024.¹⁰

1
Social Security Administration. Social Security Fairness Act: Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO)
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 415 – Computation of Primary Insurance Amount
3
Social Security Administration. Social Security Amendments of 1983 – Legislative History and Summary of Provisions
4
Social Security Administration. Program Explainer – Windfall Elimination Provision
5
Social Security Administration. Windfall Elimination Provision
6
Social Security Administration. Will Social Security Reduce My Spouse’s Benefits If I Get a Government Pension?
7
eCFR. 5 CFR Part 842 Subpart A – Coverage
8
Social Security Administration. Windfall Elimination Provision Exceptions
9
Social Security Administration. Totalization Agreements
10
U.S. Railroad Retirement Board. New Law Can Increase Payments to Recipients of Public Pensions