Methods and systems for mitigating effects of polarization dependent loss (PDL) in an optical network transmitting a multi-carrier optical signal comprising a plurality of subcarriers may involve assigning and modifying a state of polarization to each subcarrier prior to transmission. An assigned state of polarization for each subcarrier may be modified for the subcarrier in the digital domain and/or the optical domain. Various specific assignment methods may be used, including individual subcarrier assignment, subcarrier set assignment, arbitrary subcarrier group assignment, random assignment, and/or combinations thereof. The assigned states of polarization may be selected based on a resulting minimum PDL-induced peak-to-peak power variation over a sum of the subcarriers for all orientations of a principal axis of PDL.