Did you mean something like this?
A few things jump out at me. First is the TSP...contribution? I can't call it a match because you don't even need to contribute to get it. After you're vested two years, the government starts putting deposits equal to 5% of your basic pay into your TSP account (actually, it's a separate account from your own, because you won't be able to touch this money until age 59.5), with absolutely no action required on your part. Pro: you don't need to put up a match, good luck finding anything like this on the civilian side. Con: you can't touch it until retirement. This won't make a difference to most, since if it were in your TSP, you probably wouldn't touch it anyway, but if you were civilian, you could roll it into a Roth IRA after employment, and then there would be a few ways to get that money with no taxes or penalties. The two main ways are disability and first-time home buyer.
??? My current employer, and many others I have looked at their benefits packages have direct contributions, varying from 3% up to 19% of pay, each have a variety of vesting timelines, some with none required. Maybe I misunderstood your post, but so far to my experience, there are quite a wide range of attractive options in the civilian sector.First is the TSP...contribution? I can't call it a match because you don't even need to contribute to get it. After you're vested two years, the government starts putting deposits equal to 5% of your basic pay into your TSP account (actually, it's a separate account from your own, because you won't be able to touch this money until age 59.5), with absolutely no action required on your part. Pro: you don't need to put up a match, good luck finding anything like this on the civilian side.
Just . . . don't . . . touch . . . retirement . . . benefits . . . for . . . those . . . currently . . . serving.
Whoop, my bad. This is the first I'm hearing of anything like this. Are they currently being offered? I know a lot of airlines cut their matches during the recession.
But at any rate, looks like I was way off. I guess you actually WILL have good luck finding this on the civilian side.
I recently took a survey for CNAF regarding retention and incentives. At the end the survey asked "what question didn't we ask that we should have?"
I answered with the following:
You need to find where the line is when people say "screw it, I'm staying anyway" when retirement plans for currently serving service-members are drastically changed. If I woke up tomorrow and found out that (at 14 years) that I would not be getting 50% at 20 years, I would immediately submit my resignation. At that point, every additional day I spend in uniform is a day I'm not earning more income on the outside.
They need to find out where the "I'm staying anyway" line is.
Agreed. Existing members SHOULD be grandfathered in. I suggest the above question be used to drive the point home to decision makers just how dire their retention problem will be (or how much worse it will get) if they decide to dick around and not grandfather-in existing members.Maybe I am misunderstanding your post but, why find the "I'm staying anyway" line, instead of just honoring the system that individuals believed they would be able to get, when they joined/reenlisted?
Agreed. Existing members SHOULD be grandfathered in. I suggest the above question be used to drive the point home to decision makers just how dire their retention problem will be (or how much worse it will get) if they decide to dick around and not grandfather-in existing members.
As far as post 9/11 GI Bill. I wouldn't hold my breath on that remaining transferrable much longer. I also wonder how much longer it will remain available in its current format for new accessions. I can see a much stingier form of Montgomery GI Bill coming back.
They need to find out where the "I'm staying anyway" line is.
Additionally, how many of you were surveyed for the poll that concluded we would all prefer more up front cash to deferred in-kind benefits? I suspect this was a result driven survey where the respondents were selected based on the likelihood they would provide the DESIRED response... If it needs spelling out - how many of the PO3s in your command are going to say "No, I don't want more cash now - keep it and give it to me later."? I'd be very interested to see the demographics of those who were asked to participate - specifically, how many of them had more than 8 years of service.
What everyone has to keep in mind when they read all these stories of DoD "proposals" is that DoD has about 20 different options that they're ultimately going to turn over to a special commission to study possible ways of implementing ANY change. None of the 20 methods is a DoD proposal and DoD isn't recommending any of them either. So, when you read a Navy Times article about "DoD proposing this or that," take it with a grain of salt.
BL: DoD has a mandate to get certain costs under control. It will probably involve some change to the retirement system and other means of compensation. Exactly how that will be implemented is unknowable for the time being. Whatever the special commission eventually recommends will then have to survive the congressional gauntlet.