On Sun, 1 Jan 2023 06:26:15 +0000 (UTC), Phil Pugliese wrote:

>Actually, where I worked (defined benefit plan), it was actually possible,
>if a person worked/contributed for more than 43.5 years, to get MORE than
>100% of the avg of their seven highest contiguous years!After I retired the
>rule was changed so that retirement pay was 'capped' at 100% but only for
>new hires, legacy employees were 'grandfathered' in.

>However, it is important to note that there was & is NO provision for auto
>cost-of-living increases.Last year there was a 'special' one but the last
>one  before that was way back in 2005!

I have a similar plan (also defined benefit), though I believe mine is
capped at 100% (and always was), and I think I'd have to work at least 20
years (I'd have to find the numbers again and redo the calculation) past my
earliest-eligible-for-full-pension date to get there. But I'm in civil
service, and I "pay" for that benefit (and my pretty decent health care) by
making less cash-up-front than a similar position in private industry would
make. For the tier I'm in, I think my full pension is around 40% of my
best-of-last-three-years; for the tier after mine, it drops to (I think)
35% of best-of-last-five. And no, I don't get COLA on my pension (though US
Social Security does grant COLAs when they don't massage the numbers to
make the cost of living 'flat').

But I think our pensions are the exception rather than the rule, and aren't
really good guidelines for generating the kind of rule-of-thumb that I was
asking for...

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