Fred and Wilma both worked at jobs covered by Social Security. Fred gets $2,000 per month in Social Security retirement. Wilma gets $2,100 per month in her own Social Security retirement. Fred dies at age 73. Wilma, who is 71, will not get a nickel of Social Security widow's benefits, because her own Social Security benefit offsets her widow's rate dollar for dollar. (One Social Security benefit has always offset another Social Security benefit.)
Their neighbor, Barney, worked at a job covered by Social Security and he gets $2,000 per month in Social Security retirement benefits. His wife, Betty, was a teacher in a state where teachers do not pay into Social Security. She gets $2,100 per month in a teacher's retirement pension. Like Fred, Barney dies at age 73. Before the GPO law was in place, 71 year old Betty would have received Barney's full Social Security pension, or $2,000, in widow's benefits in addition to her own full teacher's pension. Why should Betty (the teacher) get a widow's benefit when Wilma (the non-teacher) doesn't get widow's benefits? The GPO law simply eliminated that loophole. So again I must ask: Why should the GPO be repealed?
In fact, even with the GPO law, Betty the teacher comes out ahead of Wilma the non-teacher. All of Wilma's Social Security retirement benefit offsets her possible widow's benefit, meaning Wilma (the non-teacher) gets nothing. But only two thirds of Betty's teacher's pension offsets her widow's benefits. Two thirds of her $2,100 teacher's pension is $1,386. So you deduct that from Barney's Social Security, and that leaves $614.
In other words, Betty, the teacher, still gets $614 in widow's benefits, even with the GPO, while Wilma, the non-teacher, gets nothing.