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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Is this true when you factor in federal workers’ lifetime benefits and pensions (even the reduced amount from what it used to be)? Contractors don’t get pensions or retirement t health plans?[/quote]

My office is not in the budget. We are pure fee-for-service. So I have visibility into the fully burdened costs for civil service folks. Some of our cost might be agency-specific, for example bldg maintenance and utilities, but that bit will be tiny compared with the other costs.

There are 2 very different Federal retirement systems. People hired before (roughly) 1984 are on the older CSRS retirement. People hired after the cutoff date are on FERS instead.

CSRS has the full pension and gold-plated benefits many people think of. CSRS fully burdened costs are visibly higher than FERS and are more similar to contractors who have employer benefits.

FERS is mostly a clone of the 401(k) / 403(b) retirement savings schemes used today by commercial and non-profits.  The 401(k) piece of FERS is called TSP. It has the same contribution limits as 401(k). Federal matching is Ok, but not as good as several commercial firms I know about. FERS retirees do not get free health insurance after retirement. There is a very very small pension component in FERS. Fully burdened costs for a FERS employee usually are visibly lower than contractors and always are visibly lower than CSRS employees with identical salary.

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