How many federal and postal employees are eligible to retire?

Source: The Washington Post

About 550,000 full-time career federal government employees and U.S. Postal Service workers could hang it up and move on at any time because they are currently eligible to retire, according to government statistics obtained Thursday. The eligible workers represent about a quarter of the 2.4 million permanent full-time employees collecting government or postal paychecks.

The Office of Personnel Management, which compiles and releases federal personnel and retirement statistics, shared the numbers Thursday after inquiries by The Washington Post. Federal workers, their union leaders and other close observers warned this week that proposals to significantly increase federal workers’ payroll deductions for contributions to their pension funds may hasten an exodus of older, experienced workers already eligible to retire.

Lawmakers and White House negotiators are considering the proposal as one of a few areas of agreement on how to reduce the federal deficit, The Post reported this week.

Federal and postal employees pay into either the Civil Service Retirement System or the newer Federal Employees Retirement System, for workers who were hired in 1984 or after.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/politics/how-many-federal-and-postal-employees-are-eligible-to-retire/2011/05/19/AFusIP7G_story.html

A lot of people have found their retirement plans don't provide the financial security they expected. A lot of people say they don't see being able to afford retirement ever. What happened here?

Who says you have to retire just because you're eligible?

But virtually everyone else in my family has been career military/government. The structural reasons why many chose not to retire when eligible are as follows:

1. Earlier eligibility
Federal workers have pension plans that have lower eligibility requirements than comparable private sector employees: for example, for workers born before 1948, the minimum retirement age was 55, and for workers born after 1970, it's 57. Some workers, such as prison staff, have earlier MRAs. There are plenty of people who have plenty of reasons for not retiring at 55 or 57. Like anywhere else, there are some folks who cannot wait to retire, but there are also plenty of folks who don't know what they would do with their time.

http://www.opm.gov/retire/faq/pre/faq11.asp

2. High-3 Salary
A federal pension is calculated based on your three highest salary years. For most workers, these will happen at the end of the career, thanks to the system of step increases within pay grades. Many federal workers see this as a powerful incentive to stay in as long as they can: especially at the lowest pay grades, this can make a big difference.

On Edit:

I forgot one:

3. Thrift savings
The Thrift Savings program is a great benefit. Some folks cannot, but everyone who can tries to max out their contributions. Delaying retirement means more years of maximum contributions to the Thrift Savings program.

how overpaid and generally over-indulged federal employees are in comparison to their "private counterparts." (Many federal slots really have no "counterpart" in the private sector, but we can all ignore reality when we're on a mission, right?)

For that reason, I am leery of the motives for yet another piece on federal employees. This one is consistent with the general theme, which seems to be, "One way or another, federal employees are bleeding the country dry, whether by getting too much money or by staying on after they 'should' retire."

If I'm mistaken, my apologies to the RW Washington Post.

There are two rules for Fers eligibility. The first is age 62 with at least five years of service. The other rule is total years of service plus age equals 85. So if you are say 58 with 27 years you are eligible, but I don't think many can live on 1% of their pay per year of service so for most employees the real retirement age is at least 62 when they can collect social security. Those under the old Civil Service get about 2% per years, and there aren't too many of those left. Many opted into FERS to take advantage of the 401k, which is decent, but I think most are squeezed by inflation to the point that they have little option but to continue working until they are at least 62.
In my own case I'm sixty two with six years of service so my pension would be about $250.00 per month. I work with one who has been where I work for 38 years and still says he can't afford to retire. All federal pensions max out at 80%of your high three, so all that BS about Congressman and other government employees getting lavish pensions is hogwash. Even if you retired from another branch of service you still couldn't get over 80%.

there are those who are court ordered to provide for other spouses and children. The MSM seem to think everyone is a top step GS 11 or better. I agree with you, I knew lots of GS-2 through 5 or WG workers with a couple bad marriages that could never retire even with eighty percent because the former spouses got half.

I also worked at one agency where it was not uncommon for certain 'made men, aka ring knockers or glad handers' to experience promotions to jobs only they were qualified for in their last three years. It was amazing to see them get incredible promotions or get placed in temporary jobs that had unlimited overtime available.

As soon as they say "HIGH FIVE" you will see the flood gates open on Federal retirements. The Federal worker is an endangered species. Who began the "contracting out" craze to reduce the Federal workforce?? Anyone remember? I would have to go look it up but I think it was Bush the Elder.

Until age 66 now. This article did a disservice by not breaking out how many of these workers had reached age 66. We all know that bad performance appraisals force older workers out all the time so the real number probably isn't that large but you would never know that from reading this hatchet job of an article.

were forced to contribute to social security while Thrift saving was supposed to boost the pension. During the Bush crash and the current recession things are going hard to reverse all good outcomes. The security of the paycheck looks better and better and if you have less fortunate family members in the "real" world you often find yourself a social net for the underpaid, the ill and the jobless. I am sixty two. Our health plan is not bad even when stacked up next to (threatened) Medicare. The paycheck is stagnant(therefore in some decline in actual purchase power) but increasingly indispensable. The bad news for the bean counters is that the exodus might not happen, just the extra hit, but I suppose that would make them happy anyway. Win win.

I used to remember the poorly paid clerks of the past with little life outside the job who worked into their nineties when tech was low and the manual jobs so many they accommodated the weak. And there was not the complexities o fear that add to the difficulties of modern retirement(for common workers).

The USPS would love to get rid of higher paid older workers- at any cost to the service. Several legislative growlings center on attacks on our group. I personally dumped all risk since Bush got elected. That meant lower earnings than the past but I didn't get wiped on the market floor like my compeers. Matching funds is the big benefit I would not risk for an extra stock market percentage. However the downturn took its maximum toll upon others in the family who had no such choices.

Apparently some would prefer the entire work force choke itself on the CO in the garage- if they could afford the gas price.

in more sane times it would make sense to give people ready to retire an incentive to do so and make those jobs available. but who the hell trusts these clowns to honor their pensions?
and in illinois here, we have so grossly underfunded city and state pension fund that if there were a rush of people retiring, it would nudge us hard toward bankruptcy.