Small Change to Placement Lists

[TimShady]

Off topic, but this really grinds my gears. I work with a guy who was hired 14 months before me and I contribute more than 5x as much as he does to our pensions. I get that the 0.8% was probably unsustainable, but jumping straight to 3.1% and then to 4.4% really created a sharp divide in the work force.

Semantics I guess but no ATC pays 0.8%. They tack on an extra 0.5 for special provision employees like us who earn a pension at an accelerated rate (1.7/year vs 1) due to our early retirement. So 1.3% vs 4.9%, less than 4x as much. Hope that makes you feel better.

In either case it’s totally worth it for the pension. Let’s do some math: Assume you make $100,000/year for 25 years and never get a raise. So you contribute $4,900x25=$122,500 during your career. If that money was invested over the 25 years and earned an average of 7% you’d have a little over $300,000. Using the 4% rule, that could provide a retirement income of $12,000/year. But instead your FERS pension provides $39,000/year. It would take about a $975,000 nest egg to supply that income using a 4% withdrawal rate.

Don’t overlook the value of the pension. The government puts in tons of money to fund it. Look at your pay stub under benefits paid by govt. In 2023 they put in over $62,000 for me, by far the biggest benefit.

 

[Slarti Bartfast]

It would take about a $975,000 nest egg to supply that income using a 4% withdrawal rate.

Agreed, and to add to that for comparison you would need to invest an additional 15% of the same $100,000 salary with no raises for 25 years to get that same roughly $975,000 in your example. So it's like we get a 15% match on top of the 5% that we actually get.

I still want more than 5% match for diversity and you know, raize wen and all that... but the pension is what's keeping me here.

And I don't want to work hard. Or go through getting a master's and spending $250,000 in student loans for one of those competitive tech jobs.

 

[Redacted]

Semantics I guess but no ATC pays 0.8%. They tack on an extra 0.5 for special provision employees like us who earn a pension at an accelerated rate (1.7/year vs 1) due to our early retirement. So 1.3% vs 4.9%, less than 4x as much. Hope that makes you feel better.

In either case it’s totally worth it for the pension. Let’s do some math: Assume you make $100,000/year for 25 years and never get a raise. So you contribute $4,900x25=$122,500 during your career. If that money was invested over the 25 years and earned an average of 7% you’d have a little over $300,000. Using the 4% rule, that could provide a retirement income of $12,000/year. But instead your FERS pension provides $39,000/year. It would take about a $975,000 nest egg to supply that income using a 4% withdrawal rate.

Don’t overlook the value of the pension. The government puts in tons of money to fund it. Look at your pay stub under benefits paid by govt. In 2023 they put in over $62,000 for me, by far the biggest benefit.

The issue is the guys at 1.3% still get to put the other 3600/year (90k over 25 years) in investments and still end up with an extra 227k over anyone who got hired after them.

Yeah, just almost a quarter of a million dollar difference for a hire date.

 

[TimShady]

The issue is the guys at 1.3% still get to put the other 3600/year (90k over 25 years) in investments and still end up with an extra 227k over anyone who got hired after them.

Yeah, just almost a quarter of a million dollar difference for a hire date.

What if they had to raise the employee contribution in order to properly fund the pension system so that it’s there for you when you retire? Would you argue they should have raised it for current employees as well, and not just future ones who are told what the rate would be before they got hired?

CSRS had more generous pensions than FERS. That’s just the way was, good for the people hired under that. I wasn’t, so I’m not going to waste time trying to figure out how I would have fared under it.

 

[GMX]

The one that pisses me off is catch-up contributions. Currently those 50 and older can contribute up to an additional $7500 on top of the IRS limit for 401k, 403b, TSP, etc. One can start at 50 and keep doing it until retirement whenever that is. Except we are forced out at 56 so we're only even allowed 6 years to catch up and it may not be long enough. Due to the mandatory retirement we ought to get a carve-out to start catch-up much earlier like 41-44 or something (assuming a regular person might start at 50 and do it until 62-65 and retire).

 

[SunnyATC]

Regarding the facilities that can be volunteered for if they wanted to stabilize staffing at these places they should let people go to them like the A80/MIA/ZOA in the NCEPT. Once you do that you are locked in for 10 years. Would probably get quite a few people who want to either go back home, working retirement location (Hawaii, St Thomas, Aspen), or just want to work at a slower facility. A lot of these places have more appeal at the top of the pay band.

 

[abc1234]

I’m in Cali. Comparing with my cousins, who are here also and of similar age, we have ok benefits. I have cousins in banking, tech, and medical. Similar pay except for tech is a bit higher. Our health insurance is pretty great in comparison (I have GEHA). I haven’t met anyone that has better health benefits for what I pay. One of my cousins pays over 1k per month for self plus family. And no he is not self employed. We also have a pension. They have more annual leave and get the 11 holidays off. And some have the ability to work from home.

This is from a job posting for a game engineer at Epic Games (Fortnite), with a CA salary range from $190k-$270k:

Our intent is to cover all things that are medically necessary and improve the quality of life. We pay 100% of the premiums for both you and your dependents. Our coverage includes Medical, Dental, a Vision HRA, Long Term Disability, Life Insurance & a 401k with competitive match. We also offer a robust mental well-being program through Modern Health, which provides free therapy and coaching for employees & dependents. Throughout the year we celebrate our employees with events and company-wide paid breaks. We offer unlimited PTO and sick time and recognize individuals for 7 years of employment with a paid sabbatical.

 

[Wizard]

Holy shit why is anyone working at ZOA instead of doing that. There must be a reason.

 

[RalphBeast]

Holy shit why is anyone working at ZOA instead of doing that. There must be a reason.

Because the dev job will require at least a bachelor's degree in a difficult field like CS, related work experience or an internship (if fresh college grad), the interview process will be fairly rigorous often lasting several days that requires you to show competence in your field, you will likely be assessed for emotional maturity because they don't want a social idiot ruining team cohesion. There will be actual performance requirements, you will be evaluated on your contributions at least twice a year. Once you hit 5-6 years in and are making $280k instead of $200k, management will start wondering why they are keeping you around if they can bring on a fresh college grad for $200k. If the economy hits the shitter you are susceptible to layoffs. Good luck looking for work as an unemployed 40 year old dev (unless you are a superstar). Comp may also partially be stock and/or performance based which is less valuable than cold hard cash. During "crunch weeks" or near releases 60-80+ hours/week is not unheard of (with zero extra comp).

ALSO unlimited PTO is the biggest scam of the century. It's basically a way for companies to not have any "vacation liability" on the books. In general, employees with unlimited PTO take far less vacation than those with a set amount of time off because no one wants to look like a slacker.

ZOA will generally take anyone with some McDonald's experience and give them a job for life no matter how much they suck, at similar comp and benefits (if not better) than the above job.

 

[Wizard]

Because the dev job will require at least a bachelor's degree in a difficult field like CS, related work experience or an internship (if fresh college grad), the interview process will be fairly rigorous often lasting several days that requires you to show competence in your field, you will likely be assessed for emotional maturity because they don't want a social idiot ruining team cohesion. There will be actual performance requirements, you will be evaluated on your contributions at least twice a year. Once you hit 5-6 years in and are making $280k instead of $200k, management will start wondering why they are keeping you around if they can bring on a fresh college grad for $200k. If the economy hits the shitter you are susceptible to layoffs. Good luck looking for work as an unemployed 40 year old dev (unless you are a superstar). Comp may also partially be stock and/or performance based which is less valuable than cold hard cash. During "crunch weeks" or near releases 60-80+ hours/week is not unheard of (with zero extra comp).

ALSO unlimited PTO is the biggest scam of the century. It's basically a way for companies to not have any "vacation liability" on the books. In general, employees with unlimited PTO take far less vacation than those with a set amount of time off because no one wants to look like a slacker.

ZOA will generally take anyone with some McDonald's experience and give them a job for life no matter how much they suck, at similar comp and benefits (if not better) than the above job.

Oh, so you’re saying we very good job security and benefits. I knew there was a reason.

 

[RalphBeast]

Oh, so you’re saying we very good job security and benefits. I knew there was a reason.

Not good enough according to many former burger-flippers turned level-12-Z-controllers on this board.