How to round up years for Social Security supplement

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I was hired on 7/6/1985 and plan to retire on 1/31/2022. that’s 36 years 6 months and 25 days. Will that round up to 37 years and does sick leave add any days toward this calculation? Thanks

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Asked on December 2, 2021 7:53 pm
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Your supplement would be based on 35 years as year one is not a full calendar year and your last year is not a full calendar year so that leaves 35 years. Sick leave does not count nor does any service in which you did not contribute to FERS, for example, if you had temporary service. Calculating the supplement is very complicated, but if you wish to try, here is the chapter in the CSRS FERS Hanbook on that topic. https://www.opm.gov/retirement-services/publications-forms/csrsfers-handbook/c051.pdf

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Answered on December 3, 2021 4:06 pm
This doesn’t sound reasonable. What if I were hired on Jan 2 and retired on Dec 30th. Would the first and last years not count because they weren’t full years?
( at December 4, 2021 3:41 am)
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According to both 5 U.S. Code § 8421 and FERS Handbook Chapter 51, the annuity supplement is calculated by:
1) Computing a Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) that is similar to the SSA PIA
2) Computing a fraction where:
a) Numerator from Law = "total years of service (rounding a fraction to the nearest whole number, with ½ being rounded to the next higher number)"
b) Numerator from FERS Handbook = "Total Civilian Service Creditable under FERS (rounded to nearest full year)"
c) Denominator = 40
3) Multiply the PIA by the fraction.
Both the law and FERS Handbook say to round the numerator which can be down or up. With 36 years 6 months and 25 days of service your numerator should be rounded to 37 to create a fraction of 40.
Note that OPM states that, "Unused Sick Leave under FERS can be used to increase an individual’s total creditable service for annuity computation purposes only." Therefore, to the best of my knowledge sick leave does not factor into the service credit used in the supplement fraction numerator. I do wonder how this is implemented in OPM software.

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Answered on August 5, 2023 11:35 pm
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