This. There are still retired feds around getting the wonderful pre 1990s federal pensions, but no one currently working for the government under about 70 years old qualifies for those pensions. The best thing about fed jobs is the potential job stability, but the shutdowns are starting to cut into that as well. |
Yea but you would need to have many millions of dollars in a 401k to generate the sort of income you’ll get from a pension |
I started in 2011, right before they more than quintupled the employee retirement contribution. I pay 0.8% of salary into FERS while a younger Fed at half my salary pays 4.4% into FERS-FRAE. It's criminal what the Baby Boomer elites did to the younger generations. And I can leave the Feds for a while, come back, and I'm still grandfathered into the 0.8% FERS system. |
I’m jealous of gov employee job security. My spouse is a gov employee and I routinely meet coworkers that are as dumb as rocks making enormous salaries that they would in no way be commanding in the private industry. Somehow they plod along slowly and inefficiently for decades at the cost of taxpayers until they retire at salary levels entirely incommensurate with their intelligence or work abilities. I wish I could have a gov job! |
+1 It’s also crazy how bloated the government is. They hire 8 people to do the job of one person |
You speak as if the government is some small group of people in a back office. There’s so many agencies and missions. There could be some areas like this but where I am it’s a lot of understaffing and budget cuts. |
In addition to the pension, federal employees also have generous sick leave and annual leave. |
Suspect because they are 20+ years in. At this point you stick it out and get the pension/healthcare/whatever benefits are available. You get the reward for taking a much lower paying jobs for the last 20 years. |
I don't agree with the dumb as rocks quote, but to think that the majority of govt workers could earn more in the private sector is a fallacy. Sure there is some specialties where the govt worker could leave and make more but that is not typical. For the most part , they have decent salaries and very generous benefits. Plus even if they are mediocre they have job security. |
There have been lots of studies on this— it depends on the job. Professional jobs like lawyers, doctors, CS are definitely paid less than the private sector. Low level jobs (like cleaning) make more than the private sector (although I’d say it’s more that the private sector is just crap). |
My DH left biglaw for a fed job. I can assure you that nobody was jealous of the salary or benefits, but they were jealous that he "escaped" to a better work-life balance (and no billables). |
+1. Tons of data out there about which jobs are paid more and which less, no need to speculate, use the data. |
Why are so many people posting about teachers’ pensions here? The question is about fed pensions.
And the reality is that the standard GS pension is worse than the military pension, public teacher pensions, county and local government pensions, university pensions, and corporate pensions (yes there are several times more people enrolled in private company pension plans than in the federal plan). When someone asks about my generous pension, I tell them that in my STEM field the newly minted graduates are hired into nonprofit research institutes at about the same salary as I’m currently making in my fifties with 33 years of career experience. Without a decent pension and retirement health care I would have left decades ago. Plenty of us do. |
If you work afterwards, you can (but a reduced amount) |
Good for them. Generous sick leave is something all employees should have. The US is the only developed country that doesn’t offer any guaranteed sick leave. |