CalSTRS staff shared that President Biden signed the federal Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82) into law on Sunday, January 5, 2025.

H.R. 82 eliminates the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), two federal rules that reduced Social Security payments for workers eligible for public pensions based on work not covered by Social Security, including CalSTRS members.

California public school educators do not pay into Social Security, so they do not receive Social Security benefits for their CalSTRS-covered employment.

While H.R. 82 does not impact CalSTRS retirement benefits, members who qualified for Social Security while working non-teaching jobs (or educator jobs not covered by CalSTRS) are now eligible to receive a Social Security benefit without being offset by the WEP.

In addition, members may now be eligible to receive spousal or survivor Social Security benefits without being offset by the GPO.

The changes in H.R. 82 are effective for benefits payable after December 2023. The next step is awaiting further information from the Social Security Administration. It’s unclear how quickly Social Security Administration will be able to recalculate benefit amounts and begin making payments that reflect the repeal of the WEP and GPO.

For additional details about the WEP and GPO, please also see CalSTRS’ bill analysis of H.R. 82, for which the Teachers’ Retirement Board took a “support” position.