In 2024, a retired postal worker with 32 years under CSRS and a side career that earned her 20 years of Social Security coverage was collecting $1,400/month less in Social Security than a private-sector worker with identical earnings. Two provisions — WEP and GPO — had been carving into her benefits for over a decade. On January 5, 2025, both were erased from the law retroactively to benefits payable January 2024.

She received a lump-sum back payment exceeding $16,000 within months. That single legislative act — the Social Security Fairness Act (P.L.

118-273) — is the largest change to federal retirement income rules in a generation, and any advisor who still models WEP or GPO reductions into a current-law retirement plan is giving dangerously wrong guidance. CSRS is the pension system that preceded FERS. It covers federal civilian employees first hired before January 1, 1984, who did not elect to transfer to FERS during the conversion windows offered in the mid-1980s and again in 1998.