What the Timeline Shows — and How It’s Built
Every event on your timeline comes from three verifiable sources. Step increases use the current pay tables for your craft (updated with the March 7, 2026 COLA) and the contractual waiting periods: 46 weeks per step for city carriers, mail handlers, and APWU employees hired May 2011 or later, and 36 weeks for APWU Schedule 1 employees hired earlier. If you enter your actual next step date from LiteBlue, every later step chains from it; if you leave it blank, the timeline assumes you’re midway through your current waiting period. Retirement gates come from the FERS eligibility rules — your MRA from the statutory birth-year table, then MRA+30, age 60 with 20 years, and age 62, with the 1.1% multiplier applied at 62 if you’ll have 20 or more years. TSP milestones compound your balance and biweekly contributions at your assumed return.
How to Read the Annuity Estimates
Each retirement gate shows an estimated annual annuity using the standard FERS formula: high-3 salary × years of service × multiplier. The timeline approximates your future high-3 as the average of your projected salary over the 36 months before each date — driven by your remaining step increases plus the pay-growth assumption you set. The default 2% growth is deliberately modest; recent years have seen larger combined COLA and general wage increases, but future contracts aren’t guaranteed. Gates reached before 62 on an unreduced path (MRA+30 or 60+20) are flagged for the FERS Special Retirement Supplement, and the MRA+10 early-out option shows its 5%-per-year penalty so you can see exactly what leaving early costs.
What It Deliberately Leaves Out
Two things can move your real dates and amounts, and both work in your favor: military service buyback can add years to your service computation date, and unused sick leave converts to service credit at retirement (2,087 hours = one full year). Neither is projected here because both depend on choices and balances only you know — treat the timeline’s annuity figures as a floor if you have either. The tool also covers career clerks, city carriers, and mail handlers only: CCAs, PSEs, and MHAs don’t receive step increases until conversion to career, and rural carrier pay depends on evaluated routes rather than a step table.
Sanity-Check Your Dates
Your official next step date lives on LiteBlue and your service computation date is on your PS Form 50 — both are worth pulling before you make plans around this timeline. For deeper dives on any gate the timeline shows you, the FERS calculator models survivor benefit elections, the TSP dashboard lets you test allocations, and the step increase guide covers what can delay a step. Estimates are for planning only; OPM adjudicates the real numbers.