Social Security benefits have been a key element of federal employees’ overall retirement package since the creation of the Federal Employees Retirement System in 1986. Along with the basic federal retirement benefit and employees’ own savings and investments in the Thrift Savings Plan, they make up the range of income sources available to federal workers as they contemplate retirement.
But Social Security is not cast in stone. Benefits and the regulations that implement them are subject to change by Congress at any time. And in recent years they’ve changed in the direction of becoming less generous in terms of replacement of wages earned while working.
