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An official website of the United States Government.

Retirement FAQs Pre-Retirement

Retirement Eligibility

  • Are individuals subject to mandatory retirement eligible to elect Phased Retirement? View more
    The law provides that employees subject to mandatory retirement (including Law Enforcement Officers, Firefighters, Nuclear Materials Couriers, Air Traffic Controllers, Customs and Border Protection Officers, or members of the Capitol Police or Supreme Court Police) may not participate.  However, “grandfathered” Customs and Border Protection Officers who are not subject to mandatory retirement may participate.
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  • What proportions of work hours are permitted for employees participating in Phased Retirement? View more
    Initially, individuals will only be able to transition to a half-time schedule. After there is experience with the program, OPM may issue regulations that provide for other work and retirement proportions.
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  • How will life insurance and health benefits be affected while in Phased Retirement? View more
    FEHB and FEGLI will stay with the employing agency.  FEGLI benefit coverage amounts will be based upon the full time salary for the position.  The FEHB employer contribution will be the same as for full-time employees.
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  • What Is the Purpose of Phased Retirement? View more
    Phased Retirement will encourage the most experienced Federal employees to extend their contributions to the Nation, and will operate as a tool to ensure continuity of operations and to facilitate knowledge management. The main purpose of Phased Retirements is to enhance mentoring and training of the employees who will be filling the positions of more experienced employees who are preparing for full retirement.  It is intended to encourage experienced employees to remain, in at least a part-time capacity, until less experienced employees are fully equipped to fulfill the same duties and responsibilities as those employees who wish to retire.  An effective Phased Retirement plan has been a long-sought goal.  However, under prior law, the problem was that an individual who was retirement eligible but wished to continue employment on a part-time basis generally had little economic incentive to do so because an employee’s potential retirement benefits would often be equal to or greater than their salary would be for part-time employment. Phased Retirement will in essence permit an individual to retire from part of their employment, while continuing the remainder and continuing to earn additional retirement benefits proportionately based upon the additional less-than-full-time employment.
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  • How will Domestic Relations Court Orders be treated while an employee is in Phased Retirement? View more
    Phased Retirement Annuities will be subject to court orders providing for division, allotment, assignment, execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal process on the same basis as other annuities.
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  • How Will Survivor Benefits Work in a Phased Retirement annuity? View more
    To make this workable and avoid intractable administrative problems, no survivor benefits can be based upon a Phased Retirement annuity.  If the individual dies prior to full retirement, survivor benefits will be those applicable for an employee who died in service, with provision for minor computational adjustments necessitated by the unique nature of Phased Retirement.
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  • If I have to get periodic medical exams to keep my disability benefit, who pays for them? View more
    Periodic medical exams, if required, are paid out of your pocket.
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  • What is Phased Retirement? View more
    Employees participating in phased retirement will be paid for the part-time service they continue to provide the government and will receive additional credit for that service toward their full retirement.  These employees will also begin receiving annuity payments, consistent with the retirement benefits they were entitled to prior to entering phased retirement status, pro-rated for the portion of the workweek they spend in retirement.  When the Phased Retiree fully retires, the revised annuity calculation will provide pro-rated service credit for additional time worked during phased retirement. This law incents participants with valuable experience to phase into retirement by providing phased retirees with more income than they would earn working part time, and more income than they would earn by fully retiring. Once these individuals fully retire, they will be entitled to a greater annuity than if they had fully retired at the time of transition to Phased Retirement, but less than if they had continued employment on a full-time basis during the period of Phased Retirement.
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Total Count: 23, Number of Pages: 2, Page: 2

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