Anonymous wrote:Thanks PP - this is really helpful and a little depressing. As I only started with the federal government in my 40s. (I am not OP).

Actually if you are willing to work until 62 and will have 20 years of service by then, you are doing pretty well because you get the bulk of FERS benefits, and hopefully you also had some 401k savings from your prior jobs.

Yes, PP, but something is better than nothing and that's retiring at 56 or 57. Really we should be working much much later into our lives anyway. Look at it positively instead of what we (FERS) don't have... a lot of private employees would love to have what we have in terms of benefits and job security.

i think it is the average of the highest three years salary, not the average of all years worked.

Thanks PP - this is really helpful and a little depressing. As I only started with the federal government in my 40s. (I am not OP).

Hi OP,
You really really need to learn about what your benefits are.

But briefly, the FERS system is a three-legged stool for retirement. The first leg is the FERS pension. Yes it's a pension, it's based on your salary (the last few years averaged together) and the number of years you worked multiplied by 1.1% of that salary. So for example, if your average ending salary was $90,000 and you worked 30 years, you would get 33% of $90,000, per year, before taxes. So that would be $30,000 a year, pre-tax; post tax it would be maybe about $22,000. $22,000 divided into 12 months would be an actual take home pensioin of $1840 roughly per month.

The second leg is your own savings in the TSP program. You MUST prioritize this, at least up to 5% because they match up to that amount. Plus you don't pay taxes on it now. When you are 59.5 years old you can start to take money out of the TSP program without a penalty but you'll pay taxes on it. You should aim for at least $500,000 and on up. Put in as much as you can when you are young-- you won't believe how the compounding interest will help you. You really should not take out more than 2-3% of it per year, which is not a lot, in order to make it last your whole post-work life.

The final leg of the stool is social security. Let's pretend that it'll still be around when you retire... maybe or maybe not. But at this point it's there. That amount would be determined by your work history and whatever formula they are using at the time, but let's just guess that your SS amount per month, pre tax, would be $1500.

So in today's dollars, your monthly amount, ROUGHLY, without any TSP or other savings, after tax would be maybe $2700 per month-- that's FERS and SS combined.

It's nice to think about that free money coming in but most likely it's not enough to live on so you would have to keep working, or have a lot of savings in TSP to withdraw, or if your spouse also had that amount you'd probably be fine. That's in general how it works.

Your agency will offer courses on benefits-- webinars or in-person classes. TAKE THEM! GL.

You agency probably has presentations from time to time to explain your benefits (we have one today at my office actually). Definitely look into this and go.

It's not an "account" really - it's not that you'll get back what you put in. That's TSP/IRA.

Yes, it's a pension.

If you're new it's 4.4% of your salary. If you were hired in 2013 it's 3.1%. 0.8% for all others.

Newly fed worker, confused about FERS.....is it a pension?

Noticed a small amount was deducted from my paycheck (~$30), and paid by government about ~$240 per paycheck. How do they calculate how much to deduct from my salary?

I find the formula is that based on the calculations: average yearly salary out of high 3-year salary x 1.1% from: http://www.opm.gov/retirement-services/fers-information/computation/

But, if so, does it matter how much to deduct from my current salary? Should the future persion/FERS be calculated based on how much has been put into my account from now on?