Santa & Whitaker are negotiating a green Chri$tmas!

Redacted said:
I’ve said this before, the congressional pay ceiling is only a factor for your retirement.

They could make the 1.6% a year 10% a year, you’d hit the ceiling after three years, and you’d be getting a 10% lump sum every single year. Hitting the cap year three would monumentally increase your lifetime earnings not to mention the 21k lump sum everyone at the cap would see every June.

They could make it a 50% raise every June which in turn just becomes a 50% bonus paid out every year.

We’re really not capped at the congressional limit.


Article highlighted for clarity. Lump sum payment.
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Pretty sure that’s exactly what I said using different words.

The only down side to bonus after bonus after bonus is that you are creating a bunch of employees dependent upon an income that their retirement will come nowhere near to reflecting. And I’m not saying I’m opposed to any kind of bonus…just stating the facts of the long term impact of bonuses. I’d personally like to see something that impacts my retirement income as well.
 
Hitting the pay cap isn’t necessarily a bad thing for those claiming it would need to be lifted. If I was told correctly as you gain more raises you basic pay moves up. So technically your salary goes up and locality goes down. This will increase your high three correct?
 
Mike Kilo said:
Hitting the pay cap isn’t necessarily a bad thing for those claiming it would need to be lifted. If I was told correctly as you gain more raises you basic pay moves up. So technically your salary goes up and locality goes down. This will increase your high three correct?
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I’m quite certain your pension goes off base pay which includes locality.

I.DO.VEHCTAHS said:
Pretty sure that’s exactly what I said using different words.

The only down side to bonus after bonus after bonus is that you are creating a bunch of employees dependent upon an income that their retirement will come nowhere near to reflecting. And I’m not saying I’m opposed to any kind of bonus…just stating the facts of the long term impact of bonuses. I’d personally like to see something that impacts my retirement income as well.
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Or you could just manage your money yourself. Max out tsp. Get the hdhp plan with an hsa. Open a Roth IRA. I think you’d be pretty well set for retirement. We have a guy retiring right now who is capped out. Take home he said will be 6200 a month with supplemental and pension. If no house payment, that’s pretty good (in CA). Plus he got his tsp on top of that. Didn’t ask how much he has in there. But a lot of guys are around 1.5mil if they maxed out their whole career.
 
Periculant said:
So you agree they would be just as qualified but since they failed the academy they shouldn't be allowed to go to facility. Even though academy you are not part of the union and once you are at facility you are hard as hell to fire and thu s basically have a job...
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Necropost but your first year in the FAA is probationary so direct to facility trainees would actually have a longer time at their facility to be washed/fired than someone who spent their first 3-5 months at OKC
 
Move78 said:
Basic pay is defined as without locality and base is with locality. Idk why that says basic because your locality does count for high 3
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But your locality where you retire is how it’s done. So it makes sense to base it on basic pay and then add in the locality where you end your career.

Edit: If you work for 20 years at a facility with 40% locality and then retire in a rest of us locality the high three isn’t saved with that previous 40% locality.
 
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Mike Kilo said:
But your locality where you retire is how it’s done. So it makes sense to base it on basic pay and then add in the locality where you end your career.

Edit: If you work for 20 years at a facility with 40% locality and then retire in a rest of us locality the high three isn’t saved with that previous 40% locality.
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It's not necessarily about where you retire. Your high 3 is your high 3, end of story. Yes, it is more likely than not that your highest 3 years of pay are the 3 years right before you retire. But you could transfer from a level 12 RUS to a level 4 with 40% locality and then your high 3 will NOT be those 3 years immediately prior to retirement and the 40% locality won't make any difference.
 
the inquirer said:
I’m quite certain your pension goes off base pay which includes locality.


Or you could just manage your money yourself. Max out tsp. Get the hdhp plan with an hsa. Open a Roth IRA. I think you’d be pretty well set for retirement. We have a guy retiring right now who is capped out. Take home he said will be 6200 a month with supplemental and pension. If no house payment, that’s pretty good (in CA). Plus he got his tsp on top of that. Didn’t ask how much he has in there. But a lot of guys are around 1.5mil if they maxed out their whole career.
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100%. I’ve managed mine more than adequately and will be mortgageless well before I retire. 1.5mil is probably on the low to average side if you’ve maxed it out. What I’m saying is calling these bonuses “raises” is just a mischaracterization, especially to those at lower level facilities that cannot afford to max out their tsp.

* when you hit the cap and raises go into effect that do no move the cap, they do adjust your basic pay up and locality down so that your premium pays are increased
 
Mike Kilo said:
But your locality where you retire is how it’s done. So it makes sense to base it on basic pay and then add in the locality where you end your career.

Edit: If you work for 20 years at a facility with 40% locality and then retire in a rest of us locality the high three isn’t saved with that previous 40% locality.
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This is incorrect and a common misconception. Your high 3 is based on your pay including locality. You don’t average 3 years without locality and then multiply by your current locality at the time of retirement.

It’s very confusing because in other contexts basic pay means without locality and base means with. I’ve seen firsthand someone transfer to my facility at the end of his career with no intention of certifying just to pad his pension and he found out the hard way it was all a waste of time.
 
TimShady said:
This is incorrect and a common misconception. Your high 3 is based on your pay including locality. You don’t average 3 years without locality and then multiply by your current locality at the time of retirement.

It’s very confusing because in other contexts basic pay means without locality and base means with. I’ve seen firsthand someone transfer to my facility at the end of his career with no intention of certifying just to pad his pension and he found out the hard way it was all a waste of time.
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They word that shit terribly for us then.
 
locality is part of the high 3 computation. you can verify by calculating the fers deduction from your paycheck: base pay X fers rate = fers deduction
 
I would recommend everyone go plug your current pay into an inflation calculator and set it for 20 years ago. Even with the government’s low cpi numbers we’ve lost over 50% (feel free to check that math percentages are not my strong suit) of our purchasing power. To meet the early 2000s avg pay we should be around 180k median salary and we are about 50k shy of that.
 
Atc12345 said:
I would recommend everyone go plug your current pay into an inflation calculator and set it for 20 years ago. Even with the government’s low cpi numbers we’ve lost over 50% (feel free to check that math percentages are not my strong suit) of our purchasing power. To meet the early 2000s avg pay we should be around 180k median salary and we are about 50k shy of that.
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So you're saying we're underpaid? Hrmmm....🤔

I wonder if anyone on here has thought about that? It's almost we need to start a movement, for raises?
 

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