Retirement

  • Thinking of retiring within the next 12 to 18 months? Tired of traffic, being beaten up by politicians and facing a furlough? And who knows when the current three-year pay freeze will ever end? So call it a day, right? Put in your papers and everything will be okay, correct? Wrong, wrong wrong. Are you nuts? Retiring is not the answer for everyone, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says.

    May 10, 2013
  • The Office of Personnel Management has made steady progress chipping away at a longstanding backlog of retirement claims. But Oversight Committee lawmakers and other government watchdogs remain concerned that the absence of a long-term plan to overhaul the mostly paper-based process combined with across-the-board budget cuts and a lack of strong leadership within OPM could stall or derail the progress the agency has made.

    May 09, 2013
  • Host Mike Causey will discuss the OPM retirement processing backlog with NARFE Legislative Director Jessica Klement and the Federal Times' Stephen Losey. May 8, 2013

    May 08, 2013
  • The number of federal employees filing retirement claims in April dipped below expectations following months of unexpectedly high numbers, according to new data from the Office of Personnel Management. OPM received 7,059 claims last month, about 1,000 fewer than expected.

    May 03, 2013
  • All Thrift Savings Plan funds continued to perform well in April. While only two funds reported higher return rates for the month compared to March, all funds posted positive returns.

    May 02, 2013
  • Host Mike Causey will talk furloughs with Federal Career Experts owner John Grobe, and hiring, retirement backlog, and more with Stephen Losey and Sean Reilly from the Federal Times. May 1, 2013

    May 01, 2013
  • The Office of Personnel Management says sequestration cuts have forced the agency to suspend overtime hours for employees working in its Retirement Services office and to curtail call-center hours.

    April 29, 2013
  • Senior Correspondent Mike Causey wants to know: Would the new plan to revise future cost-of-living adjustments put federal and Social Security retirees on a more realistic (and healthy) steak-to-beans diet? Or would each non-raise get a little worse?

    April 26, 2013
  • Financial Planner Art Stein and Federal Times Senior Staff Writer Stephen Losey join host Mike Causey to talk about a number of issues affecting federal workers. April 24, 2013

    April 24, 2013
  • Senior Correspondent Mike Causey wants to know: If I chopped a couple of bucks off each of the future cost-of-living adjustments made to your federal retirement or Social Security benefits would you even notice? Or, would you pick up the fact that over time that is a lot of money that you will never see.

    April 24, 2013
  • The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board says offering federal employees an extra loan option through their Thrift Savings Plans to cushion the impact of furloughs would require too much effort to implement and may not help the employees all that much. Several federal-employee unions have lobbied the board to add a second general purpose loan option to help cushion the blow of furloughs. But at a Employee Thrift Advisory Council meeting April 22, the board quashed the idea, citing the complexity surrounding the changes.

    April 23, 2013
  • Advocacy organizations are criticizing the Pentagon's proposed fee increase for TRICARE as unfair and discriminatory.

    April 19, 2013
  • Financial Planner Art Stein and Federal Times Senior Staff Writer Stephen Losey join host Mike Causey to talk about a number of issues affecting federal workers. April 17, 2013

    April 17, 2013
  • Federal, military and Social Security retirees would receive smaller benefits in the future if the government switches to a new yardstick to measure inflation. How much would it cost you? Maybe more than you think, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says.

    April 17, 2013