As far as his pension goes, do you know if he is CSRS or FSRS? All employees hired after 1983 are mandatory FSRS. He will NOT get $87K a year for the rest of his life if he is in FSRS, his 401K will run out before his 70's. If he is in CSRS, he has paid a butt load of cash out of his paycheck into his retirement.
@getsmartass: Your condescending and surly attitude is typical of the bureaucrats I have dealt with over the past 29 years and why most of them could not hold down a job at Walmart. You say it “took him 25 to 30 years to get where he is at, I don’t see a problem with it”. Well I’ve been “at it” for 29 years and am considered quite successful in my line of work (contrary to your assumptions)....certainly more successful than the bureacrat I described. And I’ve certainly taken more risks, suffered more stress, and worked a great deal harder than the bureaucrat. Yet what would I have had to put away in hard cash to retire at age 55 with over $100,000 a year in guaranteed income the rest of my life? I realize you haven’t lived in the real world, being a government employee and all, but its a pretty big number that most in the private sector won’t attain. The point is that the government employee pensions have become out of line with reality and should be cut back. P.S. He is under the old system not FSRS.
My husband was hired in 1980 and we are so glad he stayed with CSRS rather than switching to FERS.
And you are right about how much you pay into the system. it’s significantly more than he would have paid into social security, and yes, his retirement pay will reflect that