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Civil Servants who are employed by the Federal Government have DEFINED BENEFITS plans.

Up to 1984, new federal employees entered the Civil Service Retirement Service (CSRS) Pension plan - which allowed about 2% per year times average of highest 3 years salary (and any OT or special pays would not be computed.) Someone who retired with 30 years at age 55 would be able to get 55% of their base salary as a retirement benefit. (They contributed the equivalent of a social security payment - about 6.1% - and did not pay into social security, and got no social security credit for their work.)

Because the program was considered a bit too generous - in 1984 - new employees went into the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) - where they would get 1% per year times an average of their highest 3 years salary (again, no OT or special money awards would be added in). They would pay 1% of their salary, and they also paid into Social Security and would be eligible to draw social security.

Both programs are considered ‘contracts’ and benefits could not be taken away. But - the FERS program can be modified for new workers. Starting this January, new employees will have to contribute 2.7% (IIRC - it might be 2.9%) for their FERS benefit instead of the 1%, and all federal workers who started before Jan. 2013 have their program unchanged.

Now - both CSRS and FERS are ‘nice’ programs - nicer than many programs available to the private sector at this time, but these programs are far less lucrative than some State/County/City programs in certain states. Consider some government retirement programs in California where workers might be eligible for a 3% per year of their final year’s salary (INCLUDING Overtime!!) ...and they can retire as early as age 50. So one might get 30 years x 3% x base + OT (a value that might be 30% - 50% higher than normal) - so that from age 50 to perhaps 85 - their retirement salary is greater than their base pay ....and it gets Cost Of Living Adjustments.

In My Opinion - it is not the FERS program that is as much of a problem; the real problem is the BLOAT and growth of government programs. The Federal government has BLOAT. For every DoD program that might need trimming back - there are probably a dozen non-DoD programs that should be ABOLISHED. The size of the Federal Government has grown significantly under Barack Obama - but the DoD hasn’t been growing ... so there are other areas that should be cut back.

In the Federal Government under Barack Obama - the number of high level supervisors (GS-13/14/15 and Senior Executive Service ...SES-1/2/3/4) has grown significantly. Work hasn’t become more efficient - and supervisors and managers are harder to fire than general government workers, who are almost impossible to fire. Hard workers are not rewarded for working efficiently...and ‘management’ doesn’t seem to want to find methods to improve productivity and do more with less, because it means that their own private ‘rice bowls’ would get smaller - which is less desirable than growing an empire.