Your Turn with Mike Causey

Most current and retired federal and postal workers have a 401k plan via the federal Thrift Savings Plan. For those under the Civil Service Retirement System, with its more generous indexed-to-inflation annuity for life, the TSP is a very nice thing to have. But in most cases, not a must. For those who are or will retire under the Federal Employees Retirement System program the TSP is a must. It is at least going to be one-third of their retirement income along with Social Security and their FERS annuity, which is not fully indexed to inflation. Over time that so-called diet cost of living adjustment formula means that normal inflation or anything over 2% will eat into their FERS annuity. A number of long-time TSP investors, though not as many as before, have account balances worth $1 million or more. Many were in the $500,000 to $750,000 category, before the “correction.” During the Great Recession thousands moved money from the stock indexed C, S and I funds into the safety of the treasury securities G fun