Your Turn with Mike Causey

The good old days, a time when there was a long career, a gold watch, then a brief and frugal retirement are mostly gone. Some people are now retired for at least as long as they worked. Which can be a blessing or a curse. Things have changed. Mostly for the better. And yet.. The lead obituary in Monday’s Washington Post was about a 99-year old civil servant who had been retired since 1983. Do the math! 38 years is a long time to do anything, whether its working at the same place, being married or being retired. And in the latter case, you start out with a reduced income and under a cost of living adjustment (COLA) formula that doesn’t keep pace with inflation, especially as you get older and your medical costs go up. If you are one of the 75,000 feds with million dollar TSP accounts and are under the old Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS ), your financial life in retirement should be pretty good. But most people don’t have anywhere near that amount in their federal 401k plan. Also, most will retire und