Army Losing the TSP Race

The U.S. Army does lots of things very, very well. Especially considering its current hot war missions being fought with a smaller-than-cold-war force.

All the services are doing a great job, often in spite of being short-changed by penny-pinching, short-sighted politicians of both parties.

But there is one area where the military services, especially the Army, are not doing so well. That is in the field of encouraging their troops to participate in the Thrift Savings Plan.

Military pay isn’t great, and retired pay, for most, means cutting some corners. In that sense military people are similar to (but worse off than) FERS employees who must invest in the TSP to have a decent retirement.

Better than 80 percent of all white collar federal workers are participating in the TSP. For many of them, investments and earnings will provide half, or more, of the money they have to spend in retirement. But not so the military.

Consider this:

Only 26 percent of active duty Army personnel were contributing to the TSP as of last month. Less than 12 percent of the ready reserve, which is heavily involved in Iraq, are in the TSP.

By the same token almost 52 percent of active duty Navy personnel were in the TSP. For the Marine Corps it was 35.4 percent; Air Force 33.5 percent and the Coast Guard, 30.3 percent. Among uniformed personnel in the Public Health Service and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, the numbers were 68 percent and 67 percent respectively.

So which service is doing a good job of encouraging its people to save. And who isn’t?

The question isn’t who, it’s why?

Why is the Army lagging so far behind the other services? Granted it’s pretty busy now, but then again so is the Marine Corps. The Navy has some long deployments and the Coast Guard now is doing a lot more than guarding the coast of the U.S.. Ditto for the Air Force. They’re all busy.

Some critics claim the Army is doing a not-so-hot job on purpose. That top brass fear that if enlisted and NCOs had a fat (portable) TSP account, they would leave for greener pastures in the private sector. After all, private Defense contractors love skilled, disciplined, security-cleared people of which the Army has plenty.

Is, as the conspiracy theorists believe, the Army downplaying the value of the TSP as a “retention” tool? Does that make sense? Would the Army do something as cynical/stupid (choose one) as that?

Cash incentives are being used to stem the flow, but these are one-shot payments. The bonuses are nice, but they won’t help when individuals retire from the service – if they do. Better pay, bonuses and a higher rate of TSP participation (it would help if Uncle Sam matched contributions, like the government now does for most civil servants) might help.

The idea that the Army would intentionally downplay the TSP in order to keep people seems absurd to me. But maybe I’m missing something. Any ideas?

Stamp Out Hunger

Saturday, May 10 is the date for the nation’s largest one-day food drive. If you get mail, you can participate. The idea is this: You can set out bagged non-perishable food items and put them beside your mailbox or mail pickup spot. Members of the National Association of Letter Carriers will do the rest. They will, on their own time, pick up the items and take them to food banks in your community. The food drive is a long tradition with the letter carriers union and its brought in millions of dollars worth of food for the needy.

Nearly Useless Mothers’ Day Factoid

According to mothersdaycelebration.com, the highest officially recorded number of children born to one mother is 69, to the first wife of Feodor Vassilyev of Shuya, Russia. Between 1725 and 1765, in a total of 27 confinements (that means “birthin’s” if you’re a member of my family), she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets. 67 of them survived infancy. We don’t know what her first name was, but she probably only answered to “Mom” anyway.

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com

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