Q. I am 57 and was a civilian firefighter for the Navy in FERS with 13 years of service. I was medically retired in 2001 and have been receiving a disability annuity since. I remember being told or having read that when I turn 62, my disability annuity will revert to a standard retirement, reducing my pension. A couple of years after I left the federal system, I found part-time work to help add to my income, staying well under the 80 percent requirement, but over the last two to three years, my medical issues have worsened, and I am…
Browsing: COLA
Q. I’m under FERS and worried about a reduction in my Social Security benefits after retirement. My Social Security benefits are not calculated on an assumption of $110,000 a year until I retire. If I elect to retire with 31 years of service at my minimum retirement age of 56, will the years following my retirement without paying (or paying Social Security at a lower income level) reduce my Social Security benefits when I claim them at 62 or older?
Q: What were you thinking? No COLA for two years, now a tax increase, causing my check to be $38 less. I am barely surviving. Do something. This is no way to repay veterans, or their widows, for their service. A: You’ve come to the wrong place to point the finger of blame. The fact that no cost-of-living adjustments are being made on retiree annuities is a product of the same law that routinely gave you COLAs in the past. When the economy tanked, the index on which they are computed fell below zero. Just be thankful that this same…
Q: I work in Alaska as an Army civilian police officer. Where I am stationed, we receive specialty pay. For example, I am a GS 08 about to move up to GS 09. My current GS 08 step 4 pay is $54,633. On top of this, we still get cost-of-living allowance here, which for me turns out to be $11,440.15. A normal GS-scale employee as an GS 08 step 4 receives $41,393. Does my specialty pay count toward my Federal Employees Retirement System annuity? In other words, is my retirement based on the $54,633, or is it based on $41,393?…
Q. My husband is retired civil service, and receives a civil service annuity retirement. When we filed our federal tax return, $250 was deducted from our return even though we did not receive $250 in January 2010. Is this correct? So we did not get a $250 tax credit, I suppose. A. To better understand the mechanics of the stimulus payment, I recommend that you read the well-written summary provided by the National Association of Active and Retired Federal Employees (NARFE). Just go to www.narfe.org/departments/home/articles.cfm?10=1989.
Q. I see that the approximate COLA for retirees this year might be 0.1 percent. My question is, does that include postal retirees? I know we all go through OPM now, but sometimes it looks like postal retirees fall into a different group. A. The cost-of-living adjustment for retirees in 2010 was zero. While it’s been estimated that it will be 0.01 percent next year, when it comes to COLAs, no distinction is ever made between postal and non-postal employees
Q. I am a CSRS employee who will have 40 years of government service in mid-April 2010 at age 63. When would it be in my best interest to retire to obtain the 80 percent annuity? Whatever that date may be, would I then be entitled to the next full cost-of-living increase? A. To receive an annuity worth 80 percent of your high-3, you’d need to have 41 years an 11 months of creditable service and owe no deposits or redeposits to the retirement fund. If you worked longer than that, any retirement contributions you made to the retirement fund…
Q. Can anyone explain why retirees are not included in the 2 percent cost-of-living allowance for 2010? Is it because the President is pro union and retirees are not covered by the union? As far as I know, this is the first time retirees were excluded from annual COLAs. It would seem to me that retirees are more in need of the COLA than currently employed full-time employees. A: There are two pieces of law involved here. The salaries of employees are governed by the pay comparability act, which compares the salaries of federal jobs with those in the private…