How Re-employment Affects Federal Retirement Benefits

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If you retired and are considering going back to work for the government, you could boost your annuity—perhaps substantially.

Unless you are one of the few who will be able to keep both your annuity and the full salary of your new position, what happens depends on whether your retirement was voluntary or involuntary and what retirement system you were in. If your retirement was voluntary, you’ll continue receiving your annuity; however, unless you are allowed to draw both fully, your salary for the new job will be offset by the amount of your annuity. If you work part time, the reduction will be proportional.

In general, the annuity of a retiree stops if he or she was involuntarily separated and the new position is permanent in nature, for example a career, career conditional or excepted service appointment. If that’s the case for you, when you go back to work you’ll have the same status as any other federal employee in an equivalent position and with a similar service history. In other words, you’ll pick up where you left off. When you leave government again, your annuity will be reinstated unless you are entitled to either an immediate or a deferred annuity based on the new separation. Click HERE to read full article

TSP Millionaire Count Falls Again

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Only about six-tenths of TSP account holders who had at least $1 million on investment at the start of the year now can say the same, with the number falling to 65,494 in the latest accounting, through September.

That’s down by some 7,000 from the count through June, by more than 47,000 from year-end 2021 and by about 33,000 over the 12 months since September 2021.

Compared to year-end 2021, the 81,557 with accounts between $750,000 and $1 million and the 187,615 between $500,000 and $750,000 are down by about 24,000 and 33,000, while the 513,037 with accounts between $250,000 and $500,000 are down by about 25,000.

The largest TSP account as of September was just under $6.5 million, while as of year-end 2021 the largest account — possibly, but not necessarily, the same one — was just under $11 million.

The TSP recently reported separately that through September the average account balance for those under FERS had fallen about $30,000 to about $150,000 at the start of the year, while the average CSRS investor account had fallen by nearly as much to about $169,000.

The TSP stock funds posted strong gains in October, however.

Citation: FedWeek
Published: November 8, 2022

Phased Retirement

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Phased Retirement is a human resources tool that allows full-time employees to work part-time schedules while beginning to draw retirement benefits. This new tool will allow managers to better provide unique mentoring opportunities for employees while increasing access to the decades of institutional knowledge and experience that retirees can provide.

This is yet another forward-thinking policy that allows the Administration to continue its efforts to deliver a Government that is effective, efficient, and supportive of economic growth.

The final regulations are available on the Federal Register website and will take effect 90 days from August 8, 2014. This means that agencies can send their Phased Retirement applications to OPM for processing as early as November 6, 2014.

Guidance and other material about Phased Retirement will be posted here as it becomes available. Click HERE to read more.

Federal Government Has So Far Escaped Attrition Crisis, But Retirement Wave Looms

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Despite concerns that the ranks of the civil service could shrink during the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government is hanging on to its workers — at least for now.

There was modest change in attrition across the federal government in fiscal 2021 despite turbulence caused by the nationwide health crisis and increased resignations in 2020. In fact, the civil service increased by more than 20,000 people last year and the total workforce is up more than 130,000 positions since 2014, according to a study from the Partnership for Public Service. Of those who did leave government posts in 2021, nearly half did so because they retired.

“While some attrition is natural and can help infuse the federal workforce with new talent and ideas, turnover can also cause a loss of institutional knowledge and cost hiring managers both time and resources,” the nonprofit said in issuing the report on Aug. 2. “Moreover, the federal government continued to grow in fiscal 2021, demonstrating the stability of the career workforce. That said, certain critical elements of the federal workforce are in a state of stress.”

By agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs had the highest attrition rate at 7.1% last year, a full percentage point greater than the government-wide average and an increase from the agency’s 6.4% attrition rate in 2020. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE:

Now Is a Good Time for FERS Employees to Review TSP Investment Rates

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This point of the year is a good time for FERS employees to make sure they won’t lose government contributions to their TSP accounts due to hitting the annual investment dollar limit too early. The cap this year is $20,500 (a combined limit for both traditional pre-tax TSP investing and after-tax Roth investing, for those making both types).

FERS investors should take care to structure their investments so that they can continue investing at least 5 percent of salary, the amount that produces the maximum government contribution, through every pay period of the year. Some employees invest at high rates early in the year in order to get money in the TSP sooner and take advantage of potential tax-advantaged growth for longer periods—that is, “front-loading” their investments. Especially those FERS employees who have been doing so might want to examine their situation around now. Click HERE to read more.