TRS Georgia and Social Security After WEP Repeal: What Changed in 2025

The Short Answer: WEP and GPO Are Repealed

The Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82), signed into law on January 5, 2025, repealed both the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). The repeal is retroactive for benefits payable from January 2024 onward. SSA completed automatic retroactive adjustments and paid lump-sum back payments to affected beneficiaries starting February 2025.

If you are a Georgia TRS member or retiree who was previously affected by either provision, your Social Security benefits are now calculated under the standard formula — the same formula used for any worker with covered employment.

Do Georgia Teachers Get Social Security?

This is where it gets district-specific. Most Georgia public school districts participate in Social Security alongside TRS. Teachers in those districts pay Social Security taxes (FICA) on their earnings and accrue Social Security credits normally.

However, several Georgia school districts do not provide Social Security coverage. The most prominent is Gwinnett County Public Schools, which withdrew from Social Security in 1983 and established the Gwinnett Retirement System (GRS) as an alternative. Teachers employed exclusively in non-covered districts did not pay into Social Security and do not have Social Security work credits from those years.

Before the repeal, teachers in non-covered districts faced two penalties:

• WEP reduced their own earned Social Security benefits (from covered work at other jobs) using a modified formula that lowered the benefit by up to several hundred dollars per month
• GPO reduced or eliminated Social Security spousal and survivor benefits by two-thirds of the TRS pension amount — often zeroing out the spousal benefit entirely

Both provisions are now gone. A Gwinnett County teacher who also worked 15 years in covered employment (private sector, federal government, or a covered Georgia district) now receives the full Social Security benefit from those covered years — no WEP reduction. The same teacher's spouse, or surviving spouse, receives the full spousal or survivor benefit — no GPO offset.

What You Need to Do

If your Social Security benefits were already being paid under WEP or GPO: SSA applied automatic adjustments and retroactive payments. Check your my Social Security account at ssa.gov to verify the adjustment appears.

If you never applied for Social Security because the GPO would have eliminated the benefit: You must file a new application with SSA. Automatic enrollment does not apply to people who never applied. If you were previously told by an advisor, union rep, or forum post that "it's not worth applying because the offset wipes it out" — that advice is now outdated. File the application.

If you are unsure whether your district provides Social Security coverage: Check your Social Security earnings statement at ssa.gov. Years with zero covered earnings from a school district indicate non-covered employment. You can also ask your district's HR department directly.

Stale Information Is Everywhere

Pension handbooks, advisor articles, union blog posts, and Facebook group advice written before January 2025 still describe WEP and GPO as active provisions. Forum threads continue to warn teachers that their Social Security will be "reduced to zero" or "offset by two-thirds of the pension." This information is wrong — both provisions are fully repealed.

TRS's own publications may still reference WEP and GPO in older materials that have not been updated. When in doubt, check ssa.gov for the current status of your benefits, and verify with SSA directly.

The Georgia TRS Retirement Guide covers the WEP/GPO repeal in the context of the full TRS retirement process — including how non-covered service years interact with your pension calculation and what to verify with SSA before your retirement date.

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