Federal Employees' Compensation Act: Analysis of Benefits Under Proposed Program Changes Page: 4 of 30
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employees first hired in 1984 or later. As of September 30, 2009, about
85 percent of the federal workforce was covered by FERS.
Proposals to revise FECA include the following changes to the benefits
for future total and partial-disability beneficiaries:4
* Set initial FECA benefits at a single rate (either 66-2/3 or 70 percent
of applicable wages at time of injury), regardless of whether the
beneficiary has eligible dependents.
* Convert FECA benefits to 50 percent of applicable wages at time of
injury-adjusted for inflation-once beneficiaries reach the full Social
Security retirement age.
My statement today will focus on our findings regarding (1) the potential
effects of the proposals to compensate total-disability FECA beneficiaries
at a single rate regardless of having dependents; (2) the potential effects
of the proposal to reduce FECA benefits for total-disability beneficiaries to
50 percent of applicable wages at Social Security retirement age; and (3)
how partial-disability beneficiaries might fare under the proposed
changes. This statement is drawn primarily from our four prior reports
analyzing the effects of proposed changes to FECA.
To consider the effect of compensating total-disability FECA beneficiaries
at the single rate of either 66-2/3 or 70 percent, we conducted simulations
that compared the extent to which FECA and the proposed revision would
replace a FECA beneficiary's take-home pay by analyzing a set of federal
employees who had never been injured and who were employed at the
end of fiscal year 2010. 5 We used a matching methodology, which allows
us to capture the counterfactual of having never been injured and use it to
4The proposals analyzed are Labor's "Federal Injured Employees' Reemployment Act of
2010" technical assistance discussion draft, January 13, 2011 and S. 1789, 112th Cong.,
tit. III (2012). Both proposals include setting initial FECA benefits at a single rate-Labor
proposed 70 percent and S. 1789 proposed 66-2/3 percent. Both proposals would reduce
benefits at full Social Security retirement age to 50 percent of applicable wages.
5We defined take-home pay as gross wages reduced by mandatory retirement
contributions and federal and state income taxes (assuming a single dependent) and did
not take discretionary deductions into account. The analyses were based on snapshots in
2010 and did not consider any cumulative effects of the proposed FECA revisions on
lifetime income.GAO-13-730T
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United States. Government Accountability Office. Federal Employees' Compensation Act: Analysis of Benefits Under Proposed Program Changes, text, July 10, 2013; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc298864/m1/4/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.