Foreign Service spouses seek better retirement benefits

Foreign Service officers' spouses who worked part-time for the government would regain lost retirement benefits under a bill introduced recently in the House. The proposed legislation, H.R. 1496, would allow officers' spouses who worked overseas for the government from 1988 to 1998 to buy back into the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) for that period. FERS, which replaced the Civil Service Retirement System in the 1980s, excludes employees in part-time, intermittent or temporary (PIT) positions from contributing to or receiving credit for a federal retirement pension. Foreign Service spouses were subject to this classification until 1998. "It is simply unfair that these individuals, who have lived and worked under the most stressful of conditions and who had no choice as to the type of work they performed, are not able to buy back the retirement credit they earned," said Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., who sponsored the bill. In 1998, the State Department reclassified spouses, granting eligible family members serving in PIT positions five-year limited non-career appointments. The change allows spouses to receive retirement benefits under FERS and to contribute to the Thrift Savings Plan.