Congress’ Retirement Benefits: 5 Times the Private Sector

A member of Congress receives retirement contributions of about 33 percent of pay each year — five times as much as a private sector worker in a large company.

Writing for the Journal of the American Enterprise Institute, Andrew Biggs calculates that a retired member of Congress receives a pension equivalent to 22.4 percent of wages.

In addition, federal employees receive a government match to their Thrift Savings Plan account of up to 5 percent of pay, plus retiree health coverage worth around 6 percent of wages.

Altogether, then, members of Congress receive around 33.4 percent of pay in retirement benefits.

Private sector workers at firms with at least 1,000 employees receive total retirement compensation of around 6.4 percent of pay, Biggs says, so “annual retirement contributions for a member of Congress exceed those for private sector employees by a factor of five.â€