Can I collect Social Security and a pension, and will the pension reduce my benefit?

Nothing precludes you from getting both a pension and Social Security, and the pension will not affect the amount of your Social Security payment.

This wasn’t always the case. Until recently, if you got a pension from a job where FICA taxes were not withheld — what Social Security calls “non-covered” employment — and you qualified for Social Security retirement benefits due to other work in covered jobs, you would have been subject to a rule called the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP).

Under the WEP, the Social Security Administration (SSA) used a formula that could lower your monthly benefit payment by up to half of the amount of your pension (but could not reduce it to $0).

This pension-related reduction ended in December 2024 when Congress passed the Social Security Fairness Act, which repealed the WEP. The new law is retroactive to benefits paid for 2024, meaning affected beneficiaries will receive a lump-sum repayment for that year’s withholding.

The SSA says it is using an automated process to expedite benefit adjustments for people previously affected by the WEP. Most should receive their one-time retroactive payment by the end of March and start getting regular monthly benefits in their new, higher amount in April, the agency says, but some complex cases that need to be handled manually could take longer to resolve. Check the SSA’s Social Security Fairness Act page for status updates.

What was the WEP?

The Windfall Elimination Provision primarily affected retirees from state and local government agencies that do not participate in FICA withholding and federal workers hired before 1984, when the U.S. civil service was brought under the Social Security system. About 2.1 million people, or 3 percent of Social Security recipients, had their benefits reduced by the WEP, according to a February 2024 report from the Congressional Research Service.

The Social Security Fairness Act also repealed the Government Pension Offset (GPO), a similar rule that affected about 750,000 people who collected Social Security spousal or survivor benefits and also received a pension from federal, state or local government jobs that did not withhold Social Security taxes. Their benefits could be reduced by up to two-thirds of their pension amount and would have been eliminated if that two-thirds exceeded the Social Security payment.

Keep in mind

• Pension income does not count toward the Social Security earnings test, which can reduce your Social Security payments if you continue to work after claiming benefits.
• Pensions do count toward income for the purpose of determining whether you pay taxes on your Social Security benefits.