My ex spouse and I were both born in 1953. He took early retirement and is drawing a pension on which he did not pay social security benefits. He had a few years when he did have earnings under social security. I have paid social security on all my earnings. I used your calculator and was advised to file a restricted application and for ex spouse benefits. I plan to work on. I want to understand GPO and how GPO affects the amount I can collect on his record and how that might change when my ex files for his own and Social Security on my record. I have been to social security 3 times and just don't get it!
Hi,
GPO (Government Pension Offset) won't have any effect on your divorced spousal benefits if you aren't drawing a pension based on your own government work that was exempt from Social Security taxes. However, if your ex-spouse is drawing a pension based on his work and earnings that were exempt from Social Security taxes, then your divorced spousal rate would likely be lower due to the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP).
The WEP provision can cause a person's Social Security primary insurance amount (PIA) to be calculated under a different, less generous, calculation formula than the one normally used to calculate Social Security retirement and disability benefit rates. So, if your ex is receiving a pension based on his work and earnings that were exempt from Social Security taxes, then his PIA for Social Security benefit purposes would likely be calculated using the less generous benefit calculation formula. And, since your divorced spousal benefit rate is derived from 50% of your ex's PIA, it's the WEP provision (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10045.pdf) that may cause your divorced spousal rate to be lower, not GPO (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10007.pdf).
The less generous WEP calculation formula would likely apply when calculating your divorced spousal rate regardless of whether or not your ex has filed for his Social Security benefits, provided that he is already drawing his non-covered pension. If your ex files for divorced spousal benefits on your record and he's drawing a pension based on his government work and earnings that were exempt from Social Security taxes, then any divorced spousal benefits that he would otherwise qualify for would likely be offset by 2/3rds of the amount of his government pension. In other words, it sounds like the GPO provision will likely affect your ex's ability to draw divorced spousal benefits from your record, not the other way around.
Best, Jerry
