Senator: Retirement Wave is Coming

The long-anticipated wave of retirements of federal employees has been delayed by the lingering effects of the Great Recession. But Sen. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., who's on his way out of the world's greatest deliberative body after filling the seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden, insists that it's coming--with a vengeance.

"The fact that 10,000 people who we forecasted to retire didn't retire is almost a 'duh,' " Kaufman told the Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe. "Who's going to go out and retire right now? What we have is what's known as a pent-up demand to retire. So at some point, instead of 10,000 retiring in one year, you'll have 40,000 retire in six months. That's what will happen, trust me, if this economy comes back and gets well and people have options. I'm not talking about options and taking a new job, I'm talking about just retiring. And they'll probably still have to have a second job, because the federal pension isn't going to cover it."

Kaufman's figures are a little bit off: More than 43,000 employees did retire in fiscal 2009. But that was much less than the Office of Personnel Management anticipated. In fact, it was the lowest number since 2002.

If Kaufman's theory holds, and eventually many times the number of employees who left last year move on at once, we would be looking at a very large exodus indeed. But history shows that would be a highly unusual event. The experts have been predicting a retirement wave for many years now, but the pace hasn't picked up yet.