CalPERS and Social Security After the WEP and GPO Repeal

The WEP and GPO Are Repealed

The Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82), signed into law on January 5, 2025, permanently repealed both the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). The repeal is retroactive to benefits payable from January 2024 onward.

This is not a temporary suspension. Both provisions are eliminated from federal law.

For CalPERS members, this means a government pension no longer reduces or eliminates Social Security benefits under these two provisions. If you previously had your Social Security retirement, spousal, or survivor benefit reduced because of your CalPERS pension, those reductions should no longer apply.

What WEP and GPO Used to Do

WEP applied to your own Social Security retirement benefit. If you worked in a job covered by Social Security (private sector, federal, or a CalPERS employer that participates in Social Security) and also earned a pension from employment not covered by Social Security (common among CalPERS safety members and some local agency employees), WEP reduced your Social Security benefit using a modified formula. The reduction could be hundreds of dollars per month.

GPO applied to Social Security spousal and survivor benefits. If you received a CalPERS pension from employment not covered by Social Security, GPO reduced any Social Security spousal or widow(er) benefit you were entitled to by two-thirds of your CalPERS pension. In practice, GPO wiped out the entire Social Security spousal benefit for most affected CalPERS members.

Both provisions are gone. Your Social Security benefit is now calculated using the standard formula, the same as any other worker.

What CalPERS Members Should Do Now

Your situation depends on whether you were already receiving Social Security benefits or whether you never applied.

If You Were Already Receiving Reduced Benefits

SSA processed automatic adjustments starting in February 2025. Your monthly Social Security payment should already reflect the unreduced amount. SSA also issued lump-sum retroactive payments covering the period from January 2024 through the adjustment date.

Check your my Social Security account at ssa.gov to verify the adjustment was applied. If your benefit statement still shows a WEP or GPO reduction, contact SSA directly. SSA's automatic adjustment process is complete.

If You Never Applied Because of WEP or GPO

This is the critical group. Many CalPERS members — particularly safety members who did not participate in Social Security through their CalPERS-covered employment — never applied for Social Security spousal or retirement benefits because WEP or GPO would have reduced them to zero. Some members had enough private-sector quarters to qualify for a Social Security benefit but never filed because WEP made the benefit negligible.

SSA does not automatically identify you if you never applied. You must file a new claim with the Social Security Administration. Visit ssa.gov to file a claim or contact SSA about an appointment. Bring documentation of your CalPERS pension and your Social Security earnings history.

Apply as soon as you can. Ask SSA what entitlement date and retroactive payment rules apply to your specific claim.

Plan-Level Coordination Is Not WEP

One source of ongoing confusion: some CalPERS employer contracts include Social Security coordination built into the pension formula itself. This is a plan-level feature of the employer's CalPERS contract — not the federal WEP.

For example, an employer contract may modify the multiplier applied to pay below a set threshold because the employee is covered by Social Security. This plan-level feature accounts for the dual coverage in the pension formula.

The repeal of WEP and GPO does not change or remove plan-level Social Security coordination. That feature is embedded in the employer's contract with CalPERS and governed by state law, not federal law. If your CalPERS pension has always included a Social Security coordination component, that component remains.

The distinction matters. When you review your CalPERS retirement estimate and see a line referencing Social Security, check whether it is describing plan-level coordination (which continues) or a WEP/GPO reduction (which is gone).

How This Affects Your Retirement Planning

For CalPERS members approaching retirement, the repeal of WEP and GPO potentially increases your total household income in retirement. If you or your spouse earned Social Security benefits that were previously reduced, those benefits are now higher.

This does not change your CalPERS pension calculation — your pension formula, final compensation, and payout options work exactly the same way. What changes is the other side of the ledger: what Social Security pays alongside your pension.

When modeling total retirement income, use the myCalPERS retirement estimate for your pension amount and your my Social Security statement for your unreduced Social Security benefit. The CalPERS Service Retirement Guide covers how to evaluate combined pension and Social Security income and clarifies where plan-level coordination differs from the now-repealed federal offsets.

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