People who work for government agencies sometimes receive a separate pension from Social Security benefits and when this occurs Social Security benefits can be reduced based on those pension amounts, especially for spouses. Below is an outline of how Social Security benefits can be offset by government pensions.
A law that affects spouses and widows or widowers If you receive a retirement or disability pension from a federal, state, or local government based on your own work for which you didn’t pay Social Security taxes, we may reduce your Social Security spouses or widows or widowers benefits. This fact sheet provides answers to questions you may have about the reduction.
How much will my Social Security benefits be reduced?
We’ll reduce your Social Security benefits by two-thirds of your government pension. In other words, if you get a monthly civil service pension of $600, two-thirds of that, or $400, must be deducted from your Social Security benefits. For example, if you’re eligible for a $500 spouses, widows, or widowers benefit from Social Security, you’ll get $100 a month from Social Security ($500 – $400 = $100). If two-thirds of your government pension is more than your Social Security benefit, your benefit could be reduced to zero. If you take your government pension annuity in a lump sum, Social Security will calculate the reduction as if you chose to get monthly benefit payments from your government work.
Why will my Social Security benefits be reduced?
Benefits we pay to spouses, widows, and widowers are “dependent” benefits. Set up in the 1930s, these benefits were to compensate spouses who stayed home to raise a family and were financially dependent on the working spouse. It’s now common for both spouses to work, each earning their own Social Security retirement benefit. The law requires a person’s spouse, widow, or widower benefit to be offset by the dollar amount of their own retirement benefit. For example, if a woman worked and earned her own $800 monthly Social Security benefit, but was also due a $500 spouse’s benefit on her husband’s record, we couldn’t pay that spouse’s benefit because her own benefit offsets it. Before enactment of the Government Pension Offset law, if that same woman was a government employee who didn’t pay into Social Security and earned an $800 government pension, there was no offset. We had to pay her a full spouse’s benefit and her full government pension.
If this person’s government work had been subject to Social Security taxes, we would reduce any spouse, widow, or widower benefit because of their own Social Security retirement benefit. The Government Pension Offset ensures that we calculate the benefits of government employees who don’t pay Social Security taxes the same as workers in the private sector who pay Social Security taxes.
