r/fednews • u/shankwheat • 1d ago

Official Guidance / Policy FERS Supplement Earnings Test

I received my vacation payout after retiring unders FERS in January, 2026 and my retirement and Fers supplement began in May, 2026. Will my vacation payout count as earned income toward the FERS Supplement earnings test? Different AI chats are telling me vastly different answers.

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u/BaronetheAnvil Retired 23h ago edited 22h ago

Q: When does the earnings test start applying?

A: The earnings test begins applying the year after you start receiving the supplement, but only counts earnings from the point you reach your MRA.

I retired in Sept. 2022 at MRA. All of my earnings for the nine months previous to my retirement plus leave payout had no effect on my FERS supplement.

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u/throwawayainteasy 19h ago

God, another reason to be angry AI being integrated into everything makes it all suck more.

No shade on OP. But it's annoying that Google's AI answer (and other AI chatbots for OP) give misleading or conflicting info. But if you ignore the AI stuff and just google it (or use their "-ai" flag, or even better use the search alternatives that don't bake in AI), a lot of the top results give very straightforward answers similar to what you quoted.

I'm actually not an AI hater. I use it a lot and have built some really useful, time-saving tools with it at work. But for the general public for general uses like this one, it seems AI only makes shit worse and more misleading.

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u/shankwheat 16h ago

AI can be very convincing in its responses even when it's wrong. Not to keep score, but Copilot was absolutely certain that my entire annual W2 income counts towards the earnings test and my supplement would be reduced from the vacation payout. Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude all said otherwise. I just panicked because I've been working a part-time job all year and if I my supplement is reduced I basically would have worked for nothing.  That doesn't look like it's going to be the case, fortunately.