Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
Updated July 28, 2026. Quick answer: The reduction was capped. 42 U.S.C. §415(a)(7)(B) computed two amounts — one using the reduced percentage, one using the ordinary formula reduced by “one-half of the portion of the monthly periodic payment which is attributable to noncovered service” — and then provided that “the individual’s primary insurance amount shall be the larger of the two amounts.” So WEP could never take more than half your noncovered pension.
Why the statute paid the larger of two figures
This is the structure people miss when they describe WEP as a percentage cut. The reduced percentage was only one of two candidates. The other was your ordinary benefit less half the noncovered pension. Whichever produced the higher benefit was the one you got.
The practical effect: someone with a small noncovered pension was protected by the guarantee, because half of a small pension is a small reduction. The full force of the percentage substitution only reached people whose noncovered pension was large.
This is why “WEP could cut your benefit by hundreds a month” was true for some people and impossible for others. The reduction was bounded by your own pension. A modest noncovered pension meant a modest reduction, whatever the percentage table said.
Coordinate this with the rest of your retirement plan
A pension election is usually a one-time choice you cannot revisit, and an adviser can weigh it against your other income, your spouse’s position and how long the money has to last, though that does not replace the numbers in your own plan documents.
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What it means now
If you are trying to work out what the repeal restored, the guarantee is part of the arithmetic. Your reduction was the smaller of two things, so your increase is the smaller of two things. Anyone estimating your restored benefit from the percentage substitution alone is overstating it whenever the guarantee was the binding constraint.
And it may not have applied to you at all — 30 years of coverage removed it entirely.
No dollar amounts appear on this page, deliberately. The earnings-test exempt amounts are wage-indexed under 42 U.S.C. §403(f)(8)(B), the benefit formula bend points reset every year under §415(i), and full retirement age is a schedule that varies by birth year under §416(l). Any figure printed in an article is wrong within a year. Take current figures from the Social Security Administration directly, and take your own numbers from your Social Security statement.
Sources
Public Law 118-273, the Social Security Fairness Act of 2023, enacted 5 January 2025. The repealed provisions are quoted from the 2023 edition of the United States Code — 42 U.S.C. §415(a)(7) (WEP) and §402(k)(5) (GPO) — because they no longer appear in the 2024 edition, which is itself the record of the repeal. Editorial notes to 42 U.S.C. §402 and §415 (2024 edition) confirm each struck paragraph.
This states what the cited authority says. It is not tax advice, and retirement-plan design turns on facts about your business and your other entities that no page can see. Every dollar limit referenced here is indexed and changes annually.