Q. I worked for the USPS from 1989 – 1999 as a full time Clerk. Will I get a retirement pension of benefit in the future? When it will be and how much monthly payment I can get?
A. If you didn’t receive a refund of your retirement contributions when you left government, you’d be entitled to a deferred annuity. If you had a least 10 years of service, you’d be eligible when you reach your minimum retirement age. (MRAs range between 55 and 57 depending on your year of birth.) However, that annuity would be reduced by 5 percent for every year you were under age 62, unless you deferred the receipt of that annuity to a later date to reduce or eliminate the age penalty. If you had even one day less than 10 years of service, the earliest you would be entitled to a deferred annuity would be age 62.
Here’s the basic formula for estimating a deferred annuity: (.01) x (the average of your highest three consecutive years of basic pay) x (all years and full months of service).
