WEP Calculator: How to Use It

What this calculator does

The WEP Calculator computes the reduction to your Social Security retirement benefit that was caused by the Windfall Elimination Provision (repealed January 5, 2025). It applies the modified benefit formula, accounts for any partial exemption based on your years of substantial Social Security earnings, and enforces the 50% guarantee that prevented WEP from reducing your benefit by more than half your non-covered pension amount.

Note: The Social Security Fairness Act signed in January 2025 eliminated WEP for everyone, for benefits payable for January 2024 onward. If WEP cut your benefit, you now get the full amount. The calculator shows both the pre-repeal and current figures so you can understand what changed and whether you're owed retroactive payments.

What each input means

Social Security benefit before WEP

Your estimated Social Security benefit based on your covered earnings record, before any WEP reduction. Find this on your Social Security Statement at ssa.gov/myaccount. The statement shows your benefit at 62, FRA, and 70. Use the FRA figure for the most accurate WEP calculation.

Birth year

Your year of eligibility is the year you turned 62, and that year sets the first bend point WEP used. WEP only reached people who turned 62 from 1986 through 2023 (born 1924 to 1961). If you were born earlier, WEP never applied. If you were born in 1962 or later, it was repealed before it could reduce your retirement benefit. If you became disabled before 62, your eligibility year was the year of disability, which this calculator doesn't model.

Monthly amount of your non-covered pension

The monthly benefit from the employer that didn't withhold Social Security taxes. For most people this is a state or local government pension, a CSRS federal pension, or a foreign pension. Use the gross monthly amount before any deductions. If you have multiple non-covered pensions, add them together.

Years of substantial Social Security earnings

Count every year where your Social Security-covered wages exceeded the "substantial earnings" threshold for that year. SSA publishes the complete table of annual thresholds at ssa.gov. For reference: it was $29,700 for 2023, the last year WEP reduced any benefit. A year in which you worked both a non-covered job and a covered job could count if total covered wages exceeded the threshold.

At 30 or more years of substantial earnings, WEP didn't apply at all. At 21 to 29 years, the WEP reduction was phased out proportionally. Below 21 years, the full WEP reduction applied.

How the WEP formula worked

Standard Social Security applies a 90% factor to the first bend point of your AIME (Average Indexed Monthly Earnings). WEP replaced that 90% with a lower factor, often 40%, when you had fewer than 21 years of substantial covered earnings. The reduction in your benefit equaled the difference between what the 90% factor would have paid and what the WEP factor paid on that first bend point. That bend point is fixed by the year you turned 62, so the calculator asks for your birth year and looks it up in SSA's bend point table. For people who turned 62 in 2023, the last group WEP reached, the bend point was $1,115 and the maximum cut was $557.50 per month. People who turned 62 from 1986 through 1989 had a phased-in factor of 80%, 70%, 60% or 50% instead of 40%.

The 50% guarantee

WEP could not reduce your Social Security benefit by more than 50% of your monthly non-covered pension. If your government pension was $500/month, the WEP reduction was capped at $250/month regardless of what the formula said. This protected workers with small pensions from a disproportionate Social Security cut.