I was married for 23 yrs to my ex-husband. He is now deceased. Before his death he was receiving Social Security Disability. I want to draw off his SS as mine is very low. I only worked, paying SS taxes, from age 16 to 24. After that I worked for local government & so will retire with a government pension. (I had 40 credits & so did he.) My question is: will what I draw off his SS be subject to the Windfall Elimination Provisions (WEP) or any other law which would reduce the amount I can draw? A former employee of SSA (very recently retired) said 'no', but when I called SS they said 'yes, It would be subject to WEP.

Hi,

Your survivor benefits won't be subject to a WEP (Windfall Elimination Provision) reduction, because the WEP provision only applies to benefits payable on your own record. However, if you are receiving a local government pension based on your own earnings that were exempt from Social Security taxes, then your survivor benefits will likely be reduced or eliminated due to the Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision. Under GPO rules, Social Security spousal, divorced spousal, widow's or surviving divorced spousal benefits are subject to an offset equal to 2/3rds of the amount of any non-covered government pension based on their own work that they receive. For more information on GPO, refer to this Social Security publication: https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10007.pdf.

The maximization software available on this website is programmed to handle cases involving both WEP and GPO, so you should strongly consider using it to determine your best filing strategy.

Best, Jerry