GAO: Ensuring Income Throughout Retirement Requires Difficult Choices

GAO was asked to review strategies that experts recommend retirees employ to ensure income throughout retirement, choices retirees have made for managing their pension and financial assets for generating income, and policy options available to ensure income throughout retirement and their advantages and disadvantages.

FERS, Pension Contributions and Returning to Federal Service

For most of the 25 years or so of the existence of the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), if a FERS employee resigned and accepted a refund of his pension contributions, it was final and absolute. That is, if the employee returned to Federal service, and wanted to repay the refund, the answer was “no.” The time was lost forever. About two years ago, this changed.