Some federal careers are built to end early, so what comes next?

Guest:	Tammy Flanagan
Title:	Principal with Retire Federal
Summary:	For law enforcement officers and others, retirement can come in the late 40s or 50s with decades still ahead to fund and plan. That shift changes how they think about saving, second careers and long-term risks.

The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton provides expert insights on current events in the federal community. Read more interviews to keep up with daily news and analysis that affect the federal workforce. Reach out to Terry and the Federal Drive producers with feedback and story ideas at FederalDrive@federalnewsnetwork.com.

Interview transcript

Terry Gerton Usually when you and I talk about retirement planning, we’re talking about the average fed who has a pretty long runway. Today we’re gonna talk about a special group of people, those around and affiliated with law enforcement careers. The federal government’s really had a focus on increasing hiring there. They’ve had hiring incentives. They’ve been focused on pay raises, but I suspect a lot of people at that point aren’t really thinking about retirement. So there’s some interesting provisions here. Let’s start with those. What is it about these that is different from the average federal career?

Tammy Flanagan Well, the main difference is they carry a gun and a badge. So because of that requirement that requires a young and vigorous workforce, as we used to say back in the day, it has the benefit of a more generous retirement benefit, but also an earlier retirement. In fact, people that are serving in these positions, they’re subject to mandatory retirement, which is unusual because most federal employees, we meet employees every day in their 70s and beyond. And it’s not a problem. But in law enforcement, typically, you’ve got to retire by the time you’re 57. And sometimes that’s hard because they really love that career for the most part, and that’s their identity. So leaving that early sometimes can be a tough transition, not only financially, but also emotionally.

        Join us July 21 – 23 for Federal News Network's Space & Satellite Exchange where government and industry leaders will discuss advancing connectivity, resilience and mission reach. Register today!

Terry Gerton You were just working with some probation officers. What stood out to you about how early retirement changes their decisions?

Tammy Flanagan Well, first of all, there’s kind of two ways to look at early retirement for these law enforcement groups. They’re pretty marketable on the outside world, so they can become security folks for diplomats or dignitaries or CEOs of organizations. So some of them look into second careers kind of in the same line of work. And that’s a whole different way to plan if you’re going to have not only your retirement coming in plus a second pretty good salary. Other folks either want to fully retire or they wanna retire and do something fun. Maybe work at a golf course or do something that’s not gonna make a ton of money, but totally stress-free since they just got out of a career that was high stress. So if you’re in the group that wants to have that second career, then you wanna get out as soon as you can. And for law enforcement officers, that usually means any age if you’ve got 25 years of service. So I’ve seen some folks retire as early as 46. Or if you don’t have the 25 years, then you gotta retire at 50 and have at least 20 years in that covered law enforcement position. So the reason why I say get out as soon as you can is because number one, you’re more marketable at 45 or 50 than you are at 57. And you have more time to spend in that second career and you already got your lifetime health insurance so you can go to that new employer and say, hey, we don’t need health insurance, I just need the salary. So that’s the one group. The other group who works until they can afford to retire, sometimes they still retire fairly young and other times they’ll stay until they’re mandatory just to max out those benefits, you know, get as much time as they can in the TSP, get more years of service into that retirement benefit. So if they started, let’s say at age 22 and they work until they are 57, well, heck, they’re gonna still have 35 years of service, which is a full career by any standard. But I think the one thing they sometimes don’t pay enough attention to in some cases because they are so involved in the job that they’re doing that has long hours, they’re all over the place, they’re not sitting behind a desk all the time is that they need to understand early on, more so than everybody else perhaps, how important those retirement savings are in the thrift savings plan and managing that account so that you’re not too conservative and have a room there for growth.

Terry Gerton Tammy Flanagan is a principal with Retire Federal. Tammy, I identify with this a little bit. I was 41 when I retired from the military, and obviously I have failed at retirement many times. But for someone who is stepping away from that federal career in their mid-40s, early 50s, what does their financial reality really look like and what especially should they be thinking about in the TSP?

Tammy Flanagan Well, in the TSP, I’ve heard a lot of them tell me, boy, I wish I would have had that Roth option early on because taking money out of the TSP early on and paying tax on that on top of your regular retirement, that kind of takes a little bit out of what you’ve saved. So the Roth option can be very important to those folks, especially because they’ve got half their lifetime perhaps ahead of them. So that’s a long time to make that TSP account last. And then the other thing I hear some regrets about is being too safe, you know. Either they’ve stuck with the G fund for the most part, which is, as everybody seems to start to know these days, it’s kind of dangerous because it’s barely going to keep you ahead of inflation, not really going to be a good investment as your whole portfolio. So trying to get out of that G fund into the stock market a little bit more I think is important for those folks to maximize their growth potential. You know, there’s no guarantee, you know, as all financial planners say, past performance doesn’t guarantee future returns, but history has shown that the stock market’s gonna do something for your investments so that you can have that compound growth and maybe perhaps be able to retire quite comfortably at a young age.

Terry Gerton And you do make a point there with extended life expectancy, these early retirements really are going to have a long timeframe to make those withdrawals last, not just 20 years, maybe 40 years or longer.

Tammy Flanagan That’s right, that’s right. So that’s why I think a lot of folks will maybe not work a full second career, but maybe something so they don’t have to start tapping into those investments too early or too much. You know, if you start taking out 7 or 8% when you’re 45, you’ll be out of money by the time you qualify for social security. And also I would add to the benefits of this career is that they get cost of living adjustments right away where most FERS retirees have to wait till they’re 62. For law enforcement and other special groups that fall into these special provisions, they can get their COLA’s right away. They get their supplement from FERS, that Social Security Bridge payment. They get that, but it’s not tested for outside earnings until they’re 57 or at their minimum retirement age. So therefore, if they go out at 45, they can work another 12 years without worrying about losing that supplement. So that helps them too.

Terry Gerton That’s really important. One of the more complicated decisions here might be survivor benefits. What makes that planning so difficult when someone is retiring at a relatively young age?

        Sign up for our daily newsletter so you never miss a beat on all things federal

Tammy Flanagan Yeah, because if you’re married at the time you retire, but you’re only 50 years old and your spouse might be the same or maybe even a little younger, you’re thinking in terms of, boy, if I have to take this 10% reduction for the rest of my life off of this benefit, that’s a lot of money over all that time. And there’s a good chance, you know, hopefully that we both live well into our later years and the person who’s gonna receive the benefit might only get it for a couple of years. So I end up seeing more folks doing the partial survivor benefit to protect the health insurance for their spouse, and then maybe looking at other options to protect their spouse financially, maybe a more generous life insurance benefit or some other type of investment that’s going to allow them to still live comfortably financially, no matter what time of the year or lifetime, I might leave the Earth but still not be that much of a financial commitment. And that’s hard for me to say, as you can tell, because I’m a real fan of the survivor benefit, being a spouse myself of a federal employee. But I do think that they tend to look at other alternatives more frequently than other retirees do.

Terry Gerton And what does that mean then for the working law enforcement person here in terms of planning for the rest of their earnings potential life after retirement? What do they need to think about in terms of keeping things in balance, keeping eligibility, and managing withdrawals overall?

Tammy Flanagan For financial planning purposes, as they retire early and they’re trying to stretch everything out over a longer lifetime period, they’ve got to think in terms of still investing for the future, because not only does this money have to last 10 or 20 years, it might have to last 30 or 40 years. And maybe because I’m retiring younger, it might be important for me to buy that long-term care insurance, because I can get it at a pretty inexpensive rate at a younger age. And that way, if something does happen down the road that either me or my spouse needs that type of custodial care or personal care, I’m not gonna deplete my savings over it, which might already be partially depleted by that point as well. But of course, those who work that second career, the one catch there is that sometimes when you have your retirement that could be $30,000, $40,000 a year, plus another $150,000 a year or more in that second career, you tend to start to expand your lifestyle. And that’s the one caution, I hear a lot of financial planners warn folks who retire early into that second career to still plan for that future when all of that’s gonna end and you’re just gonna have the retirement benefit. So if you don’t wanna work for the rest of your life, then you might wanna start to live more within the means of what your future retirement’s gonna look like.

Copyright © 2026 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.