Description: The Federal Employees' Retirement System 'FERS', enacted into law on June 6, 1986, covers civilian employees of the U.S. Government who were hired after 1983. FERS supplements Social Security with a basic annuity plan and a thrift-savings plan. The Civil Service Retirement System 'CSRS' remains in effect for employees hired before 1984 who do not elect to transfer to FERS. Besides discussing the benefit changes, this paper covers the following related subjects of broader interest: 1. The federal legislative process, including the roles of interest groups, the Congress and the Administration, and the actuaries assisting them, 2. Investments in stocks and bonds by the new thrift plan, and why these use index funds, and 3. How FERS serves as a model for other large public retirement systems, using a defined contribution plan to help meet its retirement objectives and giving the private sector opportunities to provide benefit services. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1988, Vol. 40, Pt. 1.

Description: This paper first discusses the history of the legislation of the joint and survivor benefits for the uniformed service personnel. It then goes on to address the specific actuarial assumptions made and the formulas developed for applying these assumptions for adaptability to the UNIVAC. This paper closes with specific programming procedures involved in using the UNIVAC.

Description: In response to public inquiries into the indexing of pension plan benefits, the financing of defined-benefit plans with fully indexed benefits is explored. A model career-average pension plan is set up with all accrued benefits fully indexed. For different funding conditions, the changes in pension plan surplus are examined under the economic conditions of 1946-1987. The results show that the fluctuations in surplus can be more easily absorbed if the pension plan balance sheet uses market value of assets and a funding objective which is flexibly related to assets and set in terms of a fixed conventional liability and an asset fluctuation reserve. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1992, Vol. 44.

Description: Since the Internal Revenue Service updated its rules for integration of qualified pension plans [Revenue Ruling 71-446] nearly ten years ago, major changes have taken place in the structure of Social Security benefits. The lack of a consensus as to what constitutes a good set of rules for integration is a reflection of the many existing social and political viewpoints on this subject. This paper proposes a single theoretical basis for the integration of qualified pension benefits with Social Security retirement benefits and examines the implications of that proposal. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1982, Vol. 34.

Description: In the United States and in Canada, certain legislative developments have been concerned with providing retirement benefit credits to employees who work beyond normal retirement. The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical guide for actuaries to estimate the effect that delaying retirement beyond age 65 has on the cost of a pension plan. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1983, Vol. 35.

Description: This paper analyzes the design and funding of privately sponsored retirement programs in an inflationary environment. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1982, Vol. 34.

Description: The administrators of Social Security offset-type defined benefit plans commonly encounter two difficulties when attempting to calculate the Primary Insurance Amount 'PIA' offset. The first difficulty is in obtaining the Social Security earnings history. The second difficulty is in performing the calculation itself. This paper explores the possibility of substituting a variant of the employee's final average salary for his or her Social Security Average Indexed Monthly Earnings 'AIME'. The acceptability of this substitution is then critiqued with illustrations. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1980, Vol. 32.