Q. Having read the Office of Personnel Management’s Retirement Fact 13, I am still somewhat confused. If I retire at 62 with over 32 years of service under CSRS Offset, and the CSRS calculation comes out to $5,000 per month with a Social Security amount with federal earnings (Computation 2) being $500 per month, and the Social Security Administration indicates my Social Security benefit with federal service is $1,500 and $800 without federal service (Computation 1), what would my monthly annuity be from CSRS and what would be the benefit amount from Social Security?
A. The closest you’ll be able to get to an accurate estimate of how your CSRS annuity will be offset to account for your Social Security benefit is by using this simple formula: Take your Social Security benefit estimate for age 62, multiply it by your total years of CSRS Offset service (rounded to the nearest full number) and divide it by 40. In the long run, however, this is just an academic exercise because the total amount of money you’ll receive will be the same; it will just come from two different places, OPM and the Social Security Administration. Any other Social Security benefit to which you are entitled as a result of nonfederal employment will be in addition to that.
