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Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov RL30023 Summary Most of the civilian federal workforce is covered by one of two retirement systems: (1) the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) for individuals hired before 1984 or (2) the Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS) for individuals hired in 1984 or later. FERS annuities are fully funded by the sum of employee and employer contributions and interest earned by the Treasury bonds held by the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund (CSRDF). The federal government makes supplemental payments into the CSRDF on behalf of employees covered by the CSRS because employee and agency contributions and interest earnings do not meet the full cost of the benefits earned by employees covered by that system. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) estimated that in FY2015, obligations from the CSRDF would total $81.6 billion, of which $81.1 billion will represent annuity payments to retirees and survivors. Other outlays consist of refunds, payments to estates, and administrative expenses. Obligations from the fund are projected to increase by 2.7% to $83.9 billion in FY2016, of which $83.3 billion will represent annuity payments. OPM estimated that receipts to the CSRDF from all sources would be $95.2 billion in FY2015 and $96.4 billion in FY2016. The year-end balance of the CSRDF was projected to increase from $862.9 billion at the end of FY2015 to $874.7 billion at the end of FY2016. The total annual income of the CSRDF will increase from $92.6 billion in FY2013 to an estimated $152.7 billion in FY2025 and to $1.0 trillion in FY2090. The total expenses of the fund are projected to rise more slowly, increasing from $77.1 billion in FY2013 to an estimated $112.7 billion in FY2025 and to $673.3 billion in FY2090. Consequently, the assets held by the CSRDF also are projected to increase steadily, rising from $844.6 billion in FY2013 to an estimated $1.3 trillion in FY2025 and $12.8 trillion in FY2090. Expenditures from the CSRDF currently are about 40% as large as federal expenditures for the salaries and wages paid to federal employees. Pension expenditures are projected to decline relative to the government's wage and salary expenses, beginning around FY2020. By FY2090, the expenditures of the CSRDF are estimated to be only about 30% as large as the government's expenditures for wage and salary payments to employees. Because CSRS retirement benefits have never been fully funded by employer and employee contributions, the CSRDF has an unfunded liability. The unfunded liability was $785.0 billion in FY2013. According to actuarial estimates, the unfunded liability of the CSRDF will continue to rise until about FY2025, when it will peak at $834.8 billion. From that point onward, the unfunded liability will steadily decline and is projected to be eliminated by FY2090. Actuarial estimates indicate that the unfunded liability of the CSRS does not pose a threat to the solvency of the trust fund. There is no point over the next 80 years at which the assets of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund are projected to run out. Contents Introduction 1 Fundamentals of Pension Plan Financing 1 Pre-funding of Pension Benefits in the Private Sector 2 Pre-funding of Federal Employee Pension Benefits 2 Investment of Trust Fund Assets 3 Financing Retirement Annuities for Federal Employees 4 Employee Contributions 4 Employer Contributions 5 Operation of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund 6 Financial Status of the Civil Service Retirement Fund 6 The Short-Term Picture 6 The Long-Term Picture 8 The Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund in the Federal Budget 10 Civil Service Retirement: Funding and Accounting Issues 11 Accounting for Pension Costs Under CSRS and FERS 11 Why Are CSRS Revenues Less Than the Present Value of Benefits? 12 Accounting Issues Raised by the Way CSRS Benefits Are Financed 14 Conclusion 15 Tables Table 1. Receipts and Obligations of the Civil Service Retirement Fund, FY2014-2016 8 Table 2. Projected Income and Expenses of the Civil Service Retirement Fund (Combined CSRS and FERS Systems) 9 Contacts Author Contact Information 16 Acknowledgments 16 Introduction Pensions for civilian federal employees are provided through two programs, the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). CSRS was authorized by the Civil Service Retirement Act of 1920 (P.L. 66-215) and FERS was established by the Federal Employees' Retirement System Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-335). Under both CSRS and FERS, employees and their employing agencies make contributions to the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund (CSRDF), from which pension benefits are paid to retirees and their surviving dependents. Retirement and disability benefits under FERS are fully funded by employee and employer contributions and interest earned by the bonds in which the contributions are invested. The cost of the retirement and disability benefits earned by employees covered by CSRS, on the other hand, are not fully funded by agency and employee contributions and interest income. The federal government therefore makes supplemental payments each year into the civil service trust fund on behalf of employees covered by CSRS. Even with these additional payments into the trust fund, however, CSRS pensions are not fully pre-funded. Prior to 1984, federal employees did not pay Social Security payroll taxes and did not earn Social Security benefits. The Social Security Amendments of 1983 (P.L. 98-21) mandated Social Security coverage for civilian federal employees hired on or after January 1, 1984. This change was made in part because the Social Security system needed additional cash contributions to remain solvent. Enrolling federal workers in both CSRS and Social Security, however, would have resulted in duplication of some benefits and would have required employee contributions equal to more than 13% of workers' salaries. Consequently, Congress directed the development of the FERS, with Social Security as the cornerstone. The FERS is composed of three elements: (1) Social Security, (2) the FERS basic retirement annuity and the FERS supplement, and (3) the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Most permanent federal employees initially hired on or after January 1, 1984, are enrolled in the FERS, as are employees who voluntarily switched from CSRS to FERS during "open seasons" held in 1987 and 1998. Fundamentals of Pension Plan Financing Retirement plans are classified as either defined benefit (DB) plans or defined contribution (DC) plans. In a DB plan, the retirement benefit typically is based on an employee's salary and years of service. Under federal law, a DB plan must offer participants the option to take their benefit as a life annuity. A DC plan—for example, a 401(k)—is much like a savings account maintained by the employer on behalf of each participating employee. The employer or the employee or both contribute to an account, which is invested in assets such as stocks and bonds. In some DC plans, the amount of the employer contribution depends on how much the employee contributes from his or her pay. When the worker retires, he or she receives the balance in the account, which is the sum of all the contributions that have been made plus interest, dividends, and capital gains (or losses). This is usually paid as a lump-sum, but the employee sometimes has the option to receive benefits as a series of fixed payments over a period of years or as an annuity. An important difference between DB plans and DC plans is that the employer bears the financial risk in a DB plan, whereas the employee bears the financial risk in a DC plan. In a DB plan, the employer promises to provide retirement benefits equal to a certain dollar amount or a specific percentage of the employee's pay. Under federal law, employers in the private sector are required to pre-fund these benefits by setting aside money in a trust fund, which is typically invested in stocks, bonds, and other assets. The employer is at risk for the full amount of retirement benefits its employees have earned. If the assets held in the pension fund are worth less than the present value of the benefits that have been accrued under the plan, the employer is required by law to make up this deficit—called an unfunded liability—through additional contributions over a period of years. In a DC plan, it is the employee who bears the risk that markets will decline ("market risk") or that the specific investments he or she chooses will fall in value ("investment risk"). If the contributions to the account are inadequate, or if the securities in which the account is invested lose value or increase in value too slowly, the employee risks having an income in retirement that is too small to maintain his or her desired standard of living. If this situation occurs, the worker might find it necessary to delay retirement. Pre-funding of Pension Benefits in the Private Sector Private-sector employers are not required to provide retirement plans for their employees, but those that do must comply with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA; P.L. 93-406). ERISA sets standards that plans must meet with respect to reporting and disclosure, employee participation and vesting, plan funding, and fiduciary standards. Because employers cannot be certain that their revenues in future years will be sufficient to pay the pension benefits they owe to retired workers, ERISA requires companies to pre-fund DB pension obligations. Pre-funding of DB pensions protects employees who have earned the right to receive a pension, even if the firm goes out of business. Employers in the private sector pre-fund their DB pension liabilities by establishing pension trusts, which are invested in assets such as stocks and bonds. ERISA also established the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which pays pension benefits (up to limits set in law) in the event that a company goes out of business with an underfunded pension plan. The PBGC is funded by premiums paid by employers that sponsor defined benefit pensions. It does not insure defined contribution plans. Pre-funding DB pension benefits is consistent with the principles of accrual accounting, in which a firm's assets and liabilities are recognized in its financial records as they accrue, as opposed to waiting until cash is received or paid out. By providing for future pension liabilities as they are incurred, the firm is recognizing that the pension benefits that it must pay in the future are part of the cost of doing business today. When an employer fails to set aside enough money each year to pay the retirement benefits accrued by its workers that year, it accumulates an "unfunded liability." ERISA requires any employer that develops an unfunded liability in its defined benefit pension plan to make additional contributions over a period of years until the plan's assets equal the present value of its liabilities. Pre-funding of Federal Employee Pension Benefits When CSRS was established in 1920, it was not pre-funded. Benefits paid to federal retirees were paid from current contributions to the plan. Because the federal government is not likely to go out of business, it could have continued to pay the pensions earned by federal employees on a pay-as-you-go basis. Nevertheless, when Congress established FERS in 1986, it required all pension benefits earned under FERS to be fully pre-funded by the sum of employer and employee contributions and the interest earned by the U.S. Treasury bonds held by the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. Congress required pre-funding of FERS retirement benefits so that federal agencies would have to recognize these costs in their budgets. Pre-funding promotes more efficient allocation of resources between personnel costs and other expenses because it forces federal agencies to recognize the full cost of employee compensation when they prepare their annual budget requests. Investment of Trust Fund Assets The assets in private-sector pension funds represent a "store of wealth" that firms can use to meet pension obligations as they come due. The CSRDF, however, is not a store of wealth for the federal government. The fund is required by law to invest exclusively in U.S. Treasury bonds. These bonds represent budget authority, which is the legal basis for the Treasury to disburse funds. When the CSRDF redeems the Treasury bonds that it holds, the Treasury must raise an equivalent amount of cash by collecting taxes or borrowing from the public. If the CSRDF held assets that earned a higher average rate of return than U.S. Treasury bonds, some of the future cost of civil service retirement annuities could be paid from these higher investment returns. However, in the short run, allowing the CSRDF to invest in private-sector securities such as corporate stocks and bonds would result in higher federal expenditures, which would be required to purchase such private-sector securities. The trust fund's two main sources of income are employee contributions and contributions from federal agencies on behalf of their employees. Employee contributions are income both to the federal government and to the trust fund. Agency contributions, however, are income to the trust fund, but they are not income to the federal government. Agency contributions to the CSRDF are intragovernmental transfers that have no effect on the government's annual budget deficit or surplus. Currently, most outlays from the trust fund are benefit payments to annuitants. If the CSRDF were to purchase private-sector assets rather than U.S. Treasury bonds, an outlay from the trust fund would be required to purchase these assets. If employee contributions were used to purchase private-sector assets, they would no longer be income to the Treasury, and they would increase the federal budget deficit by the amount diverted to purchase private-sector assets. Agency contributions—currently an intragovernmental transfer—would instead be used to purchase private-sector assets and would be a new outlay of funds from the Treasury. Over the long run, however, purchasing private-sector assets would not increase the budget deficit, and could reduce it. Outlays would be moved from the future—where they would have occurred as benefit payments—to the present, where they would occur to purchase assets. If the net rate of return on private-sector securities exceeded the rate of return on Treasury bonds, the extra investment income earned by the trust fund would reduce the amount of tax revenue that would have to be raised from the public in the future to pay pension benefits under CSRS and FERS. Such a change in policy, however, would raise important questions about the federal government owning private-sector assets, and also could result in greater volatility in the value of the assets held by the trust funds. Financing Retirement Annuities for Federal Employees Under both CSRS and FERS, retirement annuities are based on (1) the employee's years of service, (2) the average of the employee's highest three consecutive years of salary, and (3) the benefit accrual rate. Workers covered by CSRS accrue benefits equal to 1.5% of pay for their first five years of service, 1.75% for the next five years, and 2.0% of pay for each year of service beyond the 10th year. Under CSRS, an employee with 30 years of service will have earned an annuity equal to 56.25% of the average of his or her highest three consecutive years of pay. Employees enrolled in FERS accrue benefits equal to 1.0% of pay for each year of service. If they have worked for the federal government for 20 or more years and retire at age 62 or older, the accrual rate under FERS is 1.1% for each year of service. With 30 years of service, an employee enrolled in FERS will have earned a pension equal to 30% of the average of his or her highest three consecutive years of pay, or 33% if the individual is 62 or older at retirement. Federal agencies pre-fund employee pensions by deferring some of their budget authority until it is needed to pay pensions to retired workers. Federal agencies defer this budget authority by transferring it to the CSRDF. The Treasury credits the fund with the appropriate amount of budget authority in the form of special-issue bonds that earn interest equal to the average rate on the Treasury's outstanding long-term debt. The CSRDF can redeem these bonds to pay pensions to retirees and survivors. Employee Contributions Federal employees have mandatory contributions to the CSRDF deducted from their paychecks. Employees who are under the CSRS contribute 7.0% of basic pay to the CSRDF. Employees under FERS first hired before 2013 contribute 0.8% of pay to the CSRDF and 6.2% of wages to the Social Security trust fund for Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) up to the Social Security taxable wage base. In 2015, wages up to $118,500 are subject to the OASDI tax. Employees under FERS first hired (or rehired with less than five years of FERS service) in calendar year 2013 contribute 3.1% of pay to the CSRDF and 6.2% of taxable wages to the Social Security trust fund. FERS employees first hired (or rehired with less than five years of FERS service) after December 31, 2013, contribute 4.4% of pay to the CSRDF and 6.2% of taxable wages to the Social Security trust fund. Employer Contributions Whether a federal employee is enrolled in CSRS or FERS, his or her employing agency contributes money to the CSRDF. Agency contributions differ between CSRS and FERS. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) estimates the cost of CSRS annuities to be equal to 26.0% of employee pay. This is the amount that would have to be contributed to the CSRDF each year to fully fund the benefits that employees earn under the CSRS. Under CSRS, employees and their employing agencies each contribute an amount equal to 7.0% of pay the CSRDF. Agency and employee contributions total 14.0% of pay. The Treasury makes an annual contribution to the CSRDF that covers most of the costs of the CSRS that are not covered by employee and agency contributions. In FY2015, the Treasury will pay an estimated $35.2 billion to the CSRDF. However, the CSRS continues to have an unfunded liability, which was $785.0 billion in FY2013. Effective for FY2015, OPM estimates the cost of FERS at an amount equal to 14.0% of pay for employees first hired before 2013 and 14.2% for employees first hired in 2013 or later. The employee contribution of 0.8% of pay under FERS for employees first hired before 2013 is equal to the difference between the CSRS contribution rate (7.0%) and the Social Security payroll tax rate (6.2%). Federal agencies are required to contribute to the CSRDF the full cost of the FERS benefits that employees earn each year, minus the employee contribution. Thus, federal agencies contribute an amount equal to 13.2% of payroll to the CSRDF for FERS employees hired before 2013 (14.0 - 0.8 = 13.2). Because of the increased employee contributions enacted under P.L. 112-96 federal agencies contribute 11.1% of payroll to the CSRDF for FERS employees hired (or rehired with less than five years of FERS service) in calendar year 2013 (14.2 - 3.1 = 11.1). The increased FERS employee contributions under P.L. 113-67, however, did not proportionately reduce agency contributions to FERS. Instead, employer contributions for employees first hired (or rehired with less than five years of FERS service) after December 31, 2013, remain unchanged; additional funds will be used to pay down the current unfunded liability of CSRS. When the CSRS unfunded liability has eliminated, FERS employer contributions for new employees first hired in 2014 will be recalculated and adjusted to be based on the dynamic normal cost of FERS. Therefore, FERS benefits are fully funded by employer and employee contributions and interest earnings with the exception of FERS benefits for employees first hired (or rehired with less than five years of FERS service) after December 31, 2013. For this latter category of FERS employee, the employee and agency contributions amount to more than the full cost of the FERS benefit until the point at which OPM determines that there is no longer a CSRS unfunded liability. Operation of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund The CSRDF is a record of the budget authority available to pay retirement and disability benefits to federal employees. Each year, the trust fund is credited by the Treasury with contributions from current employees and their employing agencies, interest on the securities held by the fund, interest on previous service for which benefits have been accrued but for which budget authority has not yet been provided, and a transfer from the general revenues of the Treasury. Only a small part of the income to the fund—mainly contributions from employees—is income to both the trust fund and to the government. The remainder of these transactions are intragovernmental transfers in which budget authority is transferred from federal agencies to the trust fund. Intragovernmental transfers have no effect on the size of the government's annual budget deficit or surplus. The CSRDF is similar to the Social Security trust fund in that, by law, 100% of its assets are invested in special-issue U.S. Treasury bonds or other bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. When the trust fund needs cash to pay retirement benefits, it redeems the bonds and the Treasury disburses an equivalent dollar value of payments to civil service annuitants. Because the bonds held by the trust fund are a claim on the U.S. Treasury, they ultimately are paid for by the taxpayers. According to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), balances in the trust fund are available for future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures, but only in a bookkeeping sense. The holdings of the trust funds are not assets of the Government as a whole that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury. From a cash perspective, when trust fund holdings are redeemed to authorize the payment of benefits, the Department of the Treasury finances the expenditure in the same way as any other Federal expenditure—by using current receipts or by borrowing from the public. The existence of large trust fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, increase the Government's ability to pay benefits. Put differently, these trust fund balances are assets of the program agencies and corresponding liabilities of the Treasury, netting to zero for the Government as a whole. Financial Status of the Civil Service Retirement Fund The Short-Term Picture The CSRDF held a balance of $850.0 billion at the end of FY2014. (See Table 1.) Obligations from the fund totaled $79.8 billion in FY2014, consisting mostly of annuity payments. Annuity payments totaled $79.3 billion in FY2014. Payments to the estates of decedents and refunds to separating employees accounted for another $424 million. The administrative expenses of the fund were $132 million, or about 0.17% of total obligations. In FY2014, an additional $2 million was transferred from the CSRDF to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears federal employee appeals (including federal retirement decisions). Each year, the CSRDF receives cash contributions and intragovernmental transfers. Cash contributions from required employee contributions, other employee deposits, and the District of Columbia amounted to $3.4 billion in FY2014. The largest payments into the CSRDF were contributions from federal agencies ($21.8 billion in FY2014) and the Postal Service ($2.9 billion in FY2014) on behalf of their employees, interest payments ($31.0 billion), and a payment from the general fund of the Treasury to make up for the insufficient funding of benefits accrued under CSRS ($35.0 billion in FY2014). In FY2014, there was also a $47 million payment into the CSRDF due to offsets from the re-employment of annuitants. These payments are intragovernmental transfers. The CSRDF receives Treasury bonds as a record of available budget authority. It redeems bonds periodically as annuity payments come due. Finally, the short-term term picture of the CSRDF, as estimated in the FY2015 President's Budget, includes a proposal to refund overpayments made by the U.S. Postal Service on behalf of its FERS employees. This proposal would involve additional obligations from the CSRDF estimated to be $756 million in FY2015 and $1.5 billion in FY2016. Table 1. Receipts and Obligations of the Civil Service Retirement Fund, FY2014-2016 (amounts in millions) FY2014 FY2015 (est.) FY2016 (est.) Beginning balance $835,685 $850,027 $862,877 Receipts to the fund Cash receipts: Employee contributions $2,757 $2,975 $3,091 District of Columbia $26 $25 $23 Other employee deposits $643 $616 $594 Intragovernmental transfers: Agency contributions $21,832 $24,513 $25,610 Postal Service contributions $2,873 $3,225 $3,406 Interest on securities $31,019 $28,535 $27,389 General fund receipts $34,988 $35,268 $36,268 Re-employment offset $47 $44 $43 Total receipts to the fund $94,185 $95,201 $96,424 Obligations from the fund Employee and survivor annuities -$79,284 -$81,058 -$83,324 Refunds and payments to estates -$424 -$441 -$469 Administration -$132 -$95 -$93 Transfer to Merit Systems Protection Board $2 $2 $2 Total obligations from the fund -$79,842 -$81,596 -$83,888 Proposal: Refund USPS FERS overpayment -$756 -$750 Ending balancea $850,027 $862,877 $874,659 Source: Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government, FY2016. Totals include adjustments for additional, unobligated balances ($1 million in FY2014 and FY2015; $4 million in FY2016). The Long-Term Picture Table 2 presents the annual income and expenditures of the CSRDF through FY2090, as estimated by OPM. Table 2 also shows the year-end balance of the trust fund and its estimated unfunded actuarial liability at the end of the year. The unfunded actuarial liability represents the difference between the present value of the fund's future benefit obligations and the present value of future credits to the fund plus the value of the securities it holds. The final two columns of the table show, respectively, the expenditures of the CSRDF relative to the government's total payroll expense for employee wages and salaries and CSRDF expenditures relative to the nation's annual gross domestic product (GDP). The estimates presented in Table 2 show the income to the CSRDF rising over the projection period from $92.6 billion in FY2013 to $152.7 billion in FY2025 and to about $1.0 trillion in FY2090. The total expenses of the fund are projected to rise more slowly, increasing from $77.1 billion in FY2013 to $112.7 billion in FY2025 and to $673.3 billion in FY2090. Consequently, the assets held by the CSRDF also are projected to increase steadily from $844.6 billion in FY2013 to about $1.3 trillion in FY2025 and to $12.8 trillion in FY2090. According to actuarial projections, the unfunded liability of the CSRDF will continue to rise until about FY2025, when it will peak at $834.8 billion. From that point onward, the unfunded liability will steadily decline until it is projected to be eliminated by FY2090. In FY2013, expenditures from the CSRDF totaled $77.1 billion. The federal government's payroll expense for employees in FY2013 was approximately $195.4 billion (not presented in Table 2). Therefore, expenditures from the CSRDF were equal to about 40% of the amount paid as salaries and wages to federal employees. CSRDF expenditures are projected to decline relative to the government's wage and salary expenses, beginning around FY2025. By FY2090, the expenditures of the CSRDF are estimated to be equal to about 30% of the government's wage and salary payments to its employees. The decline in the ratio of CSRDF outlays to salary expense after FY2020 will occur mainly because future retirees will receive smaller pension benefits under FERS than they would have received under CSRS. The final column of Table 2 shows federal outlays for civil service pensions as a percentage of GDP. Relative to the total economic resources of the economy, the expenditures of the CSRDF are expected to remain roughly steady for the next 10 years before declining substantially from FY2020 to FY2090. Federal expenditures for civil service retirement annuities were estimated to equal 0.48% of GDP in FY2012, down from a high of 0.55% in FY1991 (not presented in Table 2). Between FY2013 and FY2020, the annual expenditures of the CSRDF are projected to remain in the range of 0.47% to 0.41% of GDP. From that point on, outlays from the CSRDF will fall steadily to about 0.13% of GDP by FY2090. CSRDF expenditures will fall relative to GDP mainly as a result of the decline in the proportion of civil service annuitants who are covered by CSRS and the increase in the number who are covered by FERS. The FERS basic annuity was designed to be smaller relative to high-three average pay than a CSRS annuity because FERS annuitants also receive benefits from Social Security and the Thrift Savings Plan. Because the transition from CSRS to FERS is mandated by law, the constant-dollar value of CSRDF outlays per annuitant will decline due to the different benefit formulas between CSRS and FERS. Consequently, outlays for civil service annuities are almost certain to decline relative to GDP, even if GDP grows more slowly than is assumed in the projections displayed in Table 2. Table 2. Projected Income and Expenses of the Civil Service Retirement Fund (Combined CSRS and FERS Systems) (amounts in billions) Fiscal Year Total Income Total Expenses Assets at End of Year Unfunded Actuarial Liability Expenses as a Percentage of Total Payroll Expenses as a Percentage of GDP Actual 2013 92.6 -77.1 844.6 785.0 39.5 0.47 Estimated 2015 111.5 -81.9 904.2 803.0 41.0 0.45 2020 132.0 -97.1 1,069.0 828.7 41.2 0.41 2025 152.7 -112.7 1,256.6 834.8 40.4 0.38 2030 177.4 -127.3 1,486.2 814.9 38.6 0.34 2035 205.0 -140.7 1,777.0 768.5 36.1 0.31 2040 238.1 -153.8 2,156.2 692.9 33.5 0.27 2045 274.5 -167.1 2,644.9 594.3 31.0 0.24 2050 322.0 -183.5 3,273.8 469.7 29.0 0.21 2055 375.2 -207.6 4,058.6 317.4 28.0 0.19 2060 423.6 -241.3 4,954.0 184.0 27.7 0.18 2065 488.7 -285.0 5,929.8 100.1 27.9 0.17 2070 564.8 -338.5 7,015.5 43.0 28.3 0.16 2075 654.2 -402.0 8,223.0 12.2 28.6 0.15 2080 759.4 -477.3 9,572.0 1.2 28.9 0.15 2085 882.3 -566.9 11,081.0 0.0 29.3 0.14 2090 1,023.4 -673.3 12,761.8 0.0 29.6 0.13 Sources: U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Annual Report of the Board of Actuaries, Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 2014; Council of Economic Advisers, Economic Report of the President, 2015; and the 2015 Report of the Social Security Board of Trustees. The Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund in the Federal Budget In FY2015, the total receipts of the CSRDF are estimated to be approximately $95.2 billion, and obligations from the fund are estimated to be about $81.6 billion. Only a small part of the revenues to the fund ($3.6 billion) in this year were cash receipts. The remainder will consist of budget authority transferred from other federal agencies. The cash receipts of the fund come primarily from the contributions of federal employees toward their future retirement benefits. Other cash income to the fund comes from payments made by the District of Columbia on behalf of its employees covered by CSRS or FERS. Cash payments into the CSRDF are income to both the U.S. government and to the trust fund. These cash receipts reduce the government's budget deficit. Benefit payments to retirees and survivors are cash outlays of the federal government. Most of the payments into the CSRDF—an estimated $91.6 billion in FY2015—are intragovernmental transfers. These transactions are income to the fund, but they are not income to the U.S. government. Intragovernmental transactions rarely involve cash. They do not affect the government's budget deficit or surplus because no money is received or spent by the government. Cash is rarely involved in intragovernmental transfers because individual government agencies,