I'm eligible to start drawing on my government pension at age 65. I fall under WEP. I will be 64 in June of 2023. I started drawing my SS at age 62 1/2. I understand that I will keep receiving my current SS benefit payment until I actually start receiving my pension. I have 22 years of substantial earnings. I understand that my SS benefit will be reduced at the time I start drawing on my government pension.

I want to be able to understand how much my surviving spousal benefit will be reduced since I'm part of WEP. I need to get an idea of what my monthly SS benefit would be under my spouse if he passes.

My husband started collecting SS Disability at age 61 and 10 months. He will be 63 in September 2023. His monthly disability benefit is based upon his full retirement age of 67. His monthly SS Disability benefit is almost three times the amount of my monthly SS benefit.
I need to understand how I can calculate my surviving spousal benefit if my husband dies before me and I draw his SS (disability ??) benefit how much will my WEP affect my spousal benefit? I keep reading that the deceased spouse has to reach full retirement age for the surviving spouse to collect 100% of his benefit.
My situation is rather complicated due to WEP plus my husband is drawing SS disability benefits. I understand when he turns his full retirement age of 67 that his SSDI will convert over to regular SS benefits. Not sure if this changes anything.
If I purchase your software calculator will I be able to plug in our different scenarios to arrive at what my spousal survivor benefit would be?
Any assistance I can get would be appreciated.
Thanks so much

Hi. The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) won't have any effect on your spousal or survivor benefits, at least in a direct sense. WEP can only affect Social Security retirement or disability benefits, not spousal or survivor benefits.

However, there is a different provision, the Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision, that can affect spousal and survivor benefits (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10007.pdf). If you receive a pension based on your work for a governmental agency (i.e. federal, state, county or municipal) in the U.S. that was exempt from paying Social Security taxes, then any Social Security spousal or survivor for which you would otherwise be eligible would likely be offset by 2/3rds of the gross amount of your government pension.

Our software is fully programmed to handle both WEP and GPO calculations, so you may want to strongly consider using the software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to help you with your retirement planning.

Best, Jerry