## Facts

- Section 215 of the Social Security Act calculated old-age insurance benefits using a worker’s “average monthly wage” over specified “benefit computation years.”
- Under the pre-1972 statute, “elapsed years” differed by sex: for men, the period ran until age 65; for women, until age 62.
- This allowed women to exclude three additional low-earning years from the average, typically producing higher benefits than similarly situated men.
- A 1972 amendment removed the sex-based distinction, but only for men who reached age 62 in 1975 or later; it did not alter calculations for men who reached 62 earlier.
- Will Webster, a male beneficiary who reached age 62 before 1975, received benefits computed under the pre-1972 male formula and sought either application of the more favorable female formula or retroactive application of the 1972 amendment.
- After exhausting administrative remedies, Webster sued in federal district court under the Act’s judicial-review provision.
- The district court held the scheme unconstitutional and construed the 1972 amendment to apply retroactively to avoid unconstitutional unequal treatment.
- The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction and reversed.

## Issues

1. Whether the pre-1972 benefit formula favoring women violated the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
2. Whether equal protection required retroactive application of the 1972 gender-neutral amendment to men who reached age 62 before its effective date.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed and upheld the statutory scheme as applied to Webster.
- The Court held that the pre-1972 provision favoring women was permissible remedial legislation intended to address women’s historical economic disadvantage.
- Applying intermediate scrutiny, the Court found the classification served an important governmental objective and was substantially related to achieving it.
- The Court held Congress could eliminate the sex distinction prospectively and was not constitutionally required to apply the 1972 amendment retroactively to earlier cohorts of men.

## Legal Principles

- Under the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment, gender classifications must serve important governmental objectives and be substantially related to achieving those objectives.
- A gender-based classification may be valid when designed to compensate women for specific, documented economic disadvantages arising from past discrimination.
- Congress may implement prospective changes to Social Security benefit formulas without retroactively extending the new rule to all earlier beneficiaries, absent a constitutional requirement to do so.

## Conclusion

The Court sustained a Social Security benefit formula that temporarily favored women as remedial gender legislation consistent with intermediate scrutiny and held that Congress’s decision to remove the classification only prospectively did not compel retroactive benefit increases for men who had already reached eligibility age.


Califano v. Webster, 430 U.S. 313 (1977)