Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
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Updated July 28, 2026. Quick answer: Two provisions were repealed outright: the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset. The law was signed 5 January 2025, but it applies to benefits payable “for months after December 2023” — so January 2024 is the first clean month, twelve months before the signature. December 2023 was the last month either provision ever applied to anyone.
What was struck, precisely
| Section | What it removed |
|---|---|
| §2 of the Act | Paragraph (5) of Social Security Act §202(k) — the Government Pension Offset |
| §3 of the Act | Paragraph (7) of §215(a), paragraph (3) of §215(d) and paragraph (9) of §215(f) — the Windfall Elimination Provision and its machinery |
These were repeals, not suspensions and not phase-outs. The paragraphs are gone from the United States Code — you can read them only in the 2023 edition now.
The date is the part people get wrong. The effective date is “with respect to monthly insurance benefits payable under title II of the Social Security Act for months after December 2023.” That is not the signing date and not the following January. It reaches back a full year before the President signed it.
Two provisions, two different groups of people
They are constantly discussed as one thing. They were not. WEP cut your own retirement benefit; GPO cut a benefit you claimed on someone else’s record, and plenty of people were hit by one and not the other.
Whether you get money back automatically
If you were already receiving a reduced benefit, adjustments and back payments were handled without you doing anything. If you never applied because you were told it was pointless, nothing happens until you file — and that is a large group, because both provisions were widely understood as making an application worthless.
One caution worth stating plainly: the Social Security Administration has said increases vary greatly and has not published a typical figure. Anyone quoting you an average monthly increase is estimating. Your own number depends on your earnings record and which provision applied.
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.
Related
If a government pension is in the picture: the Government Pension Offset stopped reducing benefits for months after December 2023, which opened two decisions that were previously closed — the spousal benefit, and the rule that still decides whether one exists, and the survivor benefit, which can be claimed on its own schedule.
Two more claiming rules that surprise people: how the earnings test changes in the year you reach FRA — the higher limit and the monthly test.