430 U.S. 313 (1977)
Under the Social Security Act, old-age insurance benefits were computed on the basis of a wage earner's average monthly wage earned during benefit computation years.1 These were the elapsed years after 1950 reduced by five during which the wage earner's covered wages were highest.2 Until a 1972 amendment, elapsed years depended upon the sex of the wage earner.3 For a male the number of elapsed years equaled the number of years that elapsed after 1950 and before the year in which he attained age 65.4 For a female the number equaled the number of years that elapsed after 1950 and before the year in which she attained age 62.5 A male born in 1900 would therefore have 14 elapsed years on retirement at age 65 but a female born in the same year would have only 11.6 This allowed a female wage earner to exclude from the computation of her average monthly wage three more lower earning years than a similarly situated male wage earner could exclude.7 This resulted in a higher average monthly wage and higher monthly old-age benefits.8
Appellee Webster requested that the more favorable formula be used to compute his benefits.9 The request was denied after a hearing.10 He sought review of the denial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g).11 The District Court found that Webster was awarded a monthly benefit of $185.70 but that a similarly situated female wage earner would have been awarded $204 per month.12
Before 1956 the sexes were treated equally under the computation provision.13 The computation turned on attainment of retirement age then defined as 65 for both sexes.14 In 1956 retirement age was redefined as 62 for women and 65 for men.15 A House Report from that year noted that age limits were applied more frequently to job openings for women than for men and that the age limits applied were lower.16 In 1961 the differing ages for the computation of elapsed years were written explicitly into the statute.17
Congress eliminated the sex-based distinction in 1972.18 The District Court concluded that the 1972 amendment should be construed to apply retroactively.19 This was because construing the amendment to give men who reach age 62 in 1975 or later the benefit of the change but to deny older men the same benefit would render the amendment irrational.20
Whether the former version of § 215(b)(3) of the Social Security Act, which computed old-age insurance benefits more favorably for female wage earners than for similarly situated male wage earners, violated the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause?21
To withstand scrutiny under the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, classifications by gender must serve important governmental objectives and must be substantially related to achievement of those objectives.22 Reduction of the disparity in economic condition between men and women caused by the long history of discrimination against women has been recognized as such an important governmental objective.23 But the mere recitation of a benign compensatory purpose is not an automatic shield.24
No. The more favorable treatment of the female wage earner enacted here was not a result of archaic and overbroad generalizations about women or of the role-typing society has long imposed upon women. Rather the only discernible purpose of the provision was the permissible one of redressing society's longstanding disparate treatment of women.25 The statutory scheme operated directly to compensate women for past economic discrimination.26 Retirement benefits are based on past earnings.27
Allowing women who have been unfairly hindered from earning as much as men to eliminate additional low-earning years works directly to remedy some part of the effect of past discrimination.28 The legislative history of the provision also reveals that Congress directly addressed the justification for differing treatment of men and women.29 Congress purposely enacted the more favorable treatment for female wage earners to compensate for past employment discrimination against women.30 This is shown when retirement age was redefined in 1956 and the differing ages for computation of elapsed years were written explicitly into the statute in 1961.31
The former version of § 215(b)(3) of the Social Security Act did not violate the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause.32
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justice Rehnquist, Justice Stewart, Justice Blackmun
While I am happy to concur in the Court’s judgment, it is somewhat difficult to distinguish the Social Security provision upheld here from that struck down so recently in Califano v. Goldfarb.33 Although the distinction drawn by the Court between this case and Goldfarb is not totally lacking in substance, I question whether certainty in the law is promoted by hinging the validity of important statutory schemes on whether five Justices view them to be more akin to the offensive provisions struck down in Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld and Frontiero v. Richardson or more like the benign provisions upheld in Schlesinger v. Ballard and Kahn v. Shevin.34 I therefore concur in the judgment of the Court for reasons stated by Mr. Justice Rehnquist in his dissenting opinion in Goldfarb, in which Mr. Justice Stewart, Mr. Justice Blackmun, and I joined.35
Whether the 1972 amendment to the Social Security Act should be construed to apply retroactively to male wage earners who reached age 62 before 1975?36
The 1972 amendment equalizing treatment of men and women is not to be construed to apply retroactively on the theory that denying older men the same benefit would render the amendment irrational and therefore unconstitutional.37
No. That Congress changed its mind in 1972 and equalized the treatment of men and women does not constitute an admission by Congress that its previous policy was invidiously discriminatory.38 Congress may well have decided that these congressional reforms have lessened the economic justification for the more favorable benefit computation formula in the former version of the statute.39 Elimination of the more favorable benefit computation for women wage earners even in the remedial context is wholly consistent with those reforms which require equal treatment of men and women.40
The 1972 amendment to the Social Security Act should not be construed to apply retroactively to male wage earners who reached age 62 before 1975.41
Whether the failure to make the 1972 amendment retroactive constituted discrimination on the basis of date of birth?42
Old-age benefit payments are not constitutionally immunized against alterations of this kind.43 Congress expressly reserved the right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision of the Act.44 The Fifth Amendment does not forbid statutory changes to have a beginning and thus to discriminate between the rights of an earlier and later time.45
No. Congress may replace one constitutional computation formula with another and make the new formula prospective only.46 The District Court for the Eastern District of New York erred in concluding that the 1972 amendment must be construed to apply retroactively to avoid rendering the amendment irrational.47
The failure to make the 1972 amendment retroactive did not constitute discrimination on the basis of date of birth.48