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Social Security Government Pension Offset (GPO)
Social Security Government Pension Offset (GPO)

This article describes modeling GPO in My Plan.

Nancy Gates avatar
Written by Nancy Gates
Updated over a week ago

Security Government Pension Offset (GPO)

The GPO offset applies only to Social Security benefits as a spouse, or widow, or widower who receives a pension based upon his or her own federal, state, or local government employment not covered under Social Security.

The GPO reduces the spousal or widow(er) benefit by two-thirds of the monthly non-covered pension and can partially, or fully, offset an individual's spousal/widow(er) benefit, depending on the amount of the non-covered pension.

Many people don't know this, but your Social Security statement does not reflect any reduction in benefits due to GPO. The Social Security Administration will not tell you how your benefit will be reduced until you file and provide information about your pension.

If your Social Security is affected by GPO, you'll want to account for that in your Plan sooner rather than later. The best way to project your benefit is navigating over to SSA.Gov and using the GPO calculator or calling the Social Security Administration.

Once you know the effect of the GPO on your Social Security benefit we recommend that you disable our Social Security calculations and model your benefits as a pension stream.

Follow these steps:

STEP 1: Head on over to My Plan > Income > Pensions

STEP 2: Press Add a Pension +

STEP 3: Enter a descriptive name, Social Security Subject to GPO for example

STEP 4: Enter your monthly benefit

STEP 5: Enter the start and stop ages

STEP 6: Adjust the optimistic and pessimistic growth rates to match your Social Security COLA assumptions

STEP 7: Select the appropriate tax treatment

STEP 8: Save


If you will receive your own Social Security benefit, but NOT receive a spousal benefit due to GPO, we recommend that you disable our Social Security calculations and model your benefits as a two pension streams, following the steps outlined above.

The first passive income stream will represent your individual Social Security benefit.

The second passive income stream will represent your benefit reduced by GPO as a widow or widower.

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