The repeal of the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) is no longer new: higher Social Security payments began reaching affected public-sector retirees in 2025, as detailed in How Will The Social Security Fairness Act Affect Federal Employees & Retirees? But one group may still be leaving money unclaimed—Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) retirees who never formally applied for a spousal or survivor benefit because GPO would have reduced it to zero.
The Social Security Fairness Act’s implementation eliminated GPO and WEP for benefits payable beginning in January 2024. People who already had an application on file with the Social Security Administration (SSA) generally received adjustments reaching back to that date. For people who applied only after the law passed, however, SSA has continued to apply its normal retroactivity rules—generally no more than six months for certain claims filed at or after full retirement age, with different rules and exceptions for some survivor and disability claims.
The dollar amounts involved are not small. The Congressional Research Service found that eliminating GPO raised monthly benefits by an average of $700 for affected spousal beneficiaries and $1,190 for affected widow(er) beneficiaries, while eliminating WEP raised benefits by an average of $360 a month for affected workers and their dependents, as of December 2025. SSA reported paying out $17.3 billion to 2.4 million people by July 2025. Federal CSRS retirees make up a shrinking share of that group—only about 22,000 remain, compared with 6.3 million state and local government retirees also affected—but for the CSRS households still involved, a missed spousal or survivor benefit in this range is money worth going after.
Three senators challenged that policy again in February, arguing that people should not lose benefits because SSA employees previously told them there was no reason to apply. But SSA has not changed its position. An August 2026 Congressional Research Service analysis also concluded that because Congress did not amend Social Security’s existing application rules, new applicants generally remain subject to the six-month limit.
That makes the practical message more important than the disagreement: don’t wait for the policy to change.
If you receive a CSRS pension and never formally applied for Social Security as a spouse or surviving spouse because GPO appeared likely to eliminate the benefit, contact Social Security now. A past conversation with an SSA representative may not count as an application. If you did apply previously, ask SSA to confirm whether that application remained on file and whether your payment was properly adjusted after the repeal.
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Eligibility depends on your age, the type of benefit, your spouse’s earnings record and whether an application was previously filed. But delaying a new claim could cost another month of otherwise payable benefits each month you wait.
What to Do Now
If any of this applies to you, don’t wait for a resolution to the retroactivity dispute before acting. Start with the Social Security Administration’s Social Security Fairness Act page to confirm the current rules, then take one of these steps:
- Call the Social Security Administration directly at 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778), Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and ask specifically about a spousal or survivor benefit affected by GPO.
- Check or create a my Social Security account at ssa.gov to see whether an application is on file and whether your benefit has already been adjusted.
- Visit your local Social Security field office in person if you’d rather not handle it by phone.
Before you call, have your CSRS annuity documentation and any prior correspondence from SSA on hand, since that will help establish whether you were previously deterred from filing because of GPO.