A retired teacher in Texas who spent 30 years in a state pension system logged into her Social Security account last spring and saw something she had never expected: a survivor benefit of $1,247 a month, plus a lump-sum back payment stretching to January 2024. For years, she had been told she qualified for nothing. The reason for the change is the Social Security Fairness Act, signed into law on January 5, 2025, which eliminated two formulas that had slashed or erased spousal and survivor benefits for people who also collected pensions from government jobs outside the Social Security system.
The Social Security Administration says it has already processed more than 3.1 million payments under the new law. But hundreds of thousands of eligible widows, widowers, and surviving divorced spouses have not yet contacted the agency to collect. Many stopped checking years ago after being told they would receive nothing. Now, with the old rules gone and the agency’s systems updated, those benefits are waiting to be claimed.
What the law actually changed
The Social Security Fairness Act repealed two provisions that had reduced benefits for a narrow but sizable group of retirees: the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). According to Congressional Research Service estimates, roughly 2.1 million retirees were affected by the WEP and more than 700,000 by the GPO before the repeal.
The GPO, created by the 1977 Social Security Amendments and implemented in the early 1980s, reduced spousal and survivor benefits by two-thirds of a person’s government pension from non-covered employment. For many widows and widowers who had spent careers as teachers, firefighters, police officers, or state and municipal employees in pension systems outside Social Security, that formula wiped out their survivor checks entirely. The WEP applied a separate reduction to a worker’s own retirement benefit when that person had split a career between covered and non-covered jobs, often leaving them with monthly payments hundreds of dollars lower than coworkers with similar earnings histories who had paid into Social Security the entire time.
Both provisions last applied to benefits payable for December 2023. Starting with payments due for January 2024, the agency no longer applies either reduction. That means affected beneficiaries are owed retroactive payments covering early 2024 through the present, on top of permanently higher monthly amounts going forward.
The size of the increase depends on the individual’s work record, their spouse’s or former spouse’s earnings, and the amount of any public pension. According to the agency, some beneficiaries saw increases of more than $1,000 a month, particularly in cases where survivor benefits had previously been reduced to zero by the GPO. Individual results vary widely, and not every affected retiree will see a gain of that size.
Why the repeal matters for divorced spouses
The change opened a door that had been effectively locked for surviving divorced spouses. Under federal law, a divorced person whose former spouse has died can qualify for survivor benefits, but only if the marriage lasted at least ten years, per 20 CFR 404.336. That ten-year requirement did not change. What changed is that the GPO no longer wipes out the benefit once a person qualifies.
Before the repeal, a surviving divorced spouse who met every eligibility rule could still see the entire survivor payment eliminated if she or he also collected a state or local government pension. With the offset gone, that group can now receive the full survivor amount for the first time. For someone whose benefit had been zeroed out, the restoration could mean several hundred dollars a month, plus a retroactive lump sum back to January 2024.
The practical stakes are real. For retirees on fixed incomes, that additional money can cover a month’s rent, prescription costs, or utility bills that had been a constant source of stress. Yet many people in this category gave up on Social Security years ago after being told they were ineligible. Advocacy groups, including those representing retired educators and public-sector workers, are now urging surviving divorced spouses who once held non-covered government jobs to contact the SSA and request a review under the new law rather than assuming the old answer still applies.
Those who have remarried may face additional restrictions depending on when the remarriage took place. And all claimants still need to meet the standard survivor requirements: proof of the prior marriage, documentation of the former spouse’s death, and applicable age or disability criteria.
The SSA finished its initial rollout ahead of schedule
In a press release dated July 2025 (readers can verify the link once the page is publicly accessible), the agency announced it had completed over 3.1 million payments under the law, finishing five months ahead of its internal deadline. That figure covers retroactive lump sums and adjusted monthly amounts for people who were already on the agency’s rolls and whose benefits had been reduced by the GPO or WEP.
For those beneficiaries, the adjustments were largely automatic. The agency identified affected records, recalculated benefits without the old reductions, and issued payments without requiring individuals to file new paperwork. Internal computation instructions updated through the SSA’s PolicyNet system confirm that front-line staff no longer apply the WEP or GPO when calculating benefit amounts for payments due January 2024 and later.
That operational shift matters for new applicants, too. Claims filed now should reflect the higher amount from the start, rather than requiring a later correction. It also reduces the chance that a field office will inadvertently use outdated formulas when advising someone about their options.
Which states have the most affected workers
The GPO and WEP hit hardest in states where large numbers of public employees were enrolled in pension systems that did not participate in Social Security. According to Congressional Research Service data, the states with the highest concentrations of affected workers included California, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Colorado, along with Louisiana and Connecticut. These states operate retirement systems for teachers, police officers, firefighters, or other public employees that historically opted out of Social Security coverage. Retirees in those states, and their surviving spouses, are among the most likely to benefit from the repeal and should be especially attentive to whether they have unclaimed payments waiting.
How to check eligibility and file a claim
Anyone who receives, or expects to receive, a pension from a federal, state, or local government job that was not covered by Social Security should review their situation now. That includes retired teachers, police officers, firefighters, and many municipal and state employees, as well as their current or former spouses. The following groups, in particular, should act:
- Widows and widowers who were previously told they did not qualify for a survivor benefit because of the GPO.
- Surviving divorced spouses whose marriages lasted at least ten years and whose former spouses have died, especially those who were denied benefits in the past.
- Current beneficiaries receiving a reduced retirement benefit who may now find that a spousal or survivor benefit is higher and want to switch.
The most direct step is to contact the SSA. Claimants can call the agency at 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778), visit a local Social Security office, or log into their my Social Security account online to check current benefit amounts. When calling or visiting, ask specifically for a benefit review or recomputation under the Social Security Fairness Act.
Be prepared to provide information about any prior marriages, including dates of marriage and divorce, and details about the government pension you receive. In many cases, the SSA can pull earnings and benefit records electronically, but having documentation on hand speeds up the process. Because the law is retroactive to January 2024, the back payments are already established by statute, but filing sooner means receiving them sooner.
Unclaimed benefits do not arrive on their own
The repeal of the GPO and WEP closes one of the longest-running disputes in Social Security policy. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the change would cost roughly $196 billion over ten years, a figure that reflects just how many retirees were affected and how much money the old formulas had been withholding. The SSA has not published a precise count of how many eligible people have yet to file, but advocacy organizations estimate the number remains in the hundreds of thousands.
The law does not help anyone who does not know about it. With the agency’s systems updated and millions of initial payments already out the door as of mid-2025, the infrastructure is in place. The remaining question is whether the people who were told “no” for years will learn that the answer has changed. For widows, widowers, and surviving divorced spouses who spent careers in public service outside Social Security, the money is there. They just have to ask for it.
