Q. I am 58 and have 23 years of service with the IRS. Two items I have yet to see specifically addressed on the special retirement supplement are: Will my FERS retirement benefits be reduced or lower in any way if I draw the SRS? Also, the amount of the SRS is fixed on the day it is first calculated and isn’t increased by cost-of-living adjustments. Is the non-SRS portion of a FERS employee’s retirement pay still subject to cost-of-living adjustments when the employee is drawing the SRS?
Browsing: cost-of-living adjustment
Q. I am on disability retirement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. I have 13 years of service and fall in the MRA bracket born in 1953-1964. When will my annuity be recalculated? Will my annuity be more than what I am receiving on disability?
Q. I’m currently employed as a U.S. Probation Officer for the federal judiciary. I recently volunteered to relocate to another office within the same agency/district. My new office (New Bern, NC) has a lower cost-of-living adjustment than my previous office (Raleigh, NC). Due to short notice, I was unable to sell my home in Raleigh prior to moving to New Bern. As a result, I continue to pay a mortgage and properties taxes at my previous duty station, Raleigh. The federal judiciary did not authorize any relocation expenses. However, I’m looking for literature governing COLA disbursements for situations similar to…
Q. I became a CSRS retiree as of Nov. 30. I received my first pension payment for December in early January. I always thought that I would be eligible for my first cost-of-living adjustment starting in 2014. But the retirement article “2013: Employee pay is frozen, but retirees get 1.7% COLA,” states: “If you’ve been retired for less than one year when you become eligible for a COLA, the amount you get will be proportional to the number of months you’ve been on the annuity roll. For example, if you were on the annuity roll in June 2012, you’d receive…
Q. I am a letter carrier, age 52, started in 1985 and have 28 years of creditable service. If I understand what I’ve gleaned from the posts here and the Postal Service were to offer me a Voluntary Early Retirement Authority this year, 1. Would I begin my annuity immediately? 2. Would I have no reductions in calculations of my annuity? (average high-3 x 1 percent x 28) 3. Would I receive credit for half of my sick leave and all of my annual leave? (How are these applied?) 4. Would I receive the special retirement supplement beginning at age…
Q. If I retire with 32 years at age 57 (minimum retirement age) and start receiving annuity payments at that time will I get a cost-of-living adjustment for the years from age 57 to 62 when I hit 62? Or do I merely start getting the COLA for the year I am 62 and each subsequent year? If I defer annuity payments until age 62, would I get a COLA for the years from age 57 to 62? A. You would only receive a COLA to your annuity when you are age 62.
Q. I retired from civil service on disability as a GS-11 under FERS in 2007 with nine years of service. My disability monthly pay is about $ 1,630. I will be age 62 in August and, from what I have been reading, my disability will convert to regular retirement at that time. If my time in service is counted up until age 62, I am thinking I will have about 15 years service. Can I expect my monthly pay to drop or increase at age 62? I don’t know what my high-3 is or would be since I am retired.…
Q. Usually the checks federal retirees receive in February are lower than the January checks. This is usually due to increases in health insurance premiums. This year, the checks were larger. The January checks reflected the cost-of-living adjustment increase. What caused the February increase? A. Since annuity payments are retroactive, your February payment was for the month of January. You might check to see if the increase was due to a decrease in the premiums for your health benefits.
Q. I retired Dec. 31, 2010, at age 60 and turned 62 on Dec. 11 under the FERS 60/20 retirement plan. I thought this would qualify for the 1.7 percent cost-of-living increase in 2013 as I did not get a COLA for two years per the conditions. Will I actually have to wait another year to qualify for a COLA as I am being told? A. Yes.
Q. Are FERS annuities adjusted for inflation? I have 33 years of government service. With that many years of work, will my FERS annuity be lower if I retire in March, before my 62nd birthday in September? A. Unless you are a special category employee, such as a law enforcement officer, you would first be eligible for a cost-of-living adjustment at age 62. Be aware that COLAs are applied based on the number of months you are on the annuity roll after reaching age 62. Therefore, if you retired in March, you would first be eligible in September and receive…