Reforming the GPO and WEP In Social Security

Peter A. Diamond, Peter Orszag

[© Brookings Institution] In the absence of special rules, workers or spouses with extended careers outside Social Security would gain unfair advantages from the program's rules. Congress has therefore enacted rules -- the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provision—to limit the extent to which Social Security provides unwarranted subsidies to workers with pensions based on non-covered work. Some advocates and policymakers, however, have expressed dissatisfaction with the workings of these rules. We propose a modification to the rules to preserve their basic role while better tailoring them to individual circumstances.

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