In one paragraph
What is retirement scenario comparison?
Scenario comparison is a what-if analysis that changes one planning decision and shows you the financial result. In RetireCiv you adjust your retirement date, TSP savings rate, income replacement, investment return, life expectancy, spending pattern, Social Security claiming age, or survivor election, and every figure updates as you move the control. The main output is a year-by-year chart of where your income comes from, from your first year of retirement through the end of your plan. This lets federal employees see a tradeoff like retiring at 57 versus 62 in full, not just as a single monthly number. This page explains what you can change and how to read the result.
Overview
The What-If Scenarios tool is RetireCiv's what-if analysis engine. You change a planning decision, and the page recalculates your whole retirement from that change: the income needed to fund your plan, your guaranteed income, your TSP balance at retirement, when the income you receive first falls short of the level you chose, and a chart of your income by source for every year you are retired.
Every major retirement decision (when to retire, how much to save in your TSP, when to claim Social Security, whether to elect a survivor annuity) has a measurable financial impact. This tool makes those tradeoffs visible before you commit to one.
There is no scenario list to manage and nothing to name or save. You move a control and read the result, then move it back. Each setting change is a complete, independent recalculation using the same engine as your dashboard, not an approximation.
The projection follows one fixed return and inflation path. Inflation and your pre-retirement return come from your saved assumptions; the return during retirement starts at 4% and is set on the page itself. It does not model market ups and downs. For that, use the Monte Carlo tool, which runs thousands of varied market paths.
What You Can Compare
The projection starts from the plan you entered in the calculator. You can then change any combination of the following:
Retirement date
Pick your planned date or type any date. Standard employees also get their earliest VERA date, their MRA (with 10 years of service), and ages 60 (with 20 years), 62 (with 5 years), 65, 67, and 70; law enforcement, firefighters, and controllers get their own special-provision dates (age 50 with 20 years, 25 years at any age) and their mandatory separation age instead. Ages you have already passed are not offered. Ages past a mandatory retirement age are shown but flagged, since agencies can retain you past them.
TSP savings rate
Set the percent of salary you contribute while still working, from 0% up to at least 30% (extended when your current election is already higher). Your agency match is added on top, up to the IRS deferral limit; past it the match stops when your contributions do. This changes your balance at retirement, and so the income your TSP can support.
Life expectancy
Set how long the projection runs, for you and for your spouse. This is where the chart ends. A spouse who outlives you keeps the projection running on survivor income.
Social Security age
Set your claiming age from 62 through 70. Each year of delay past your Full Retirement Age increases your benefit by roughly 8% per year via Delayed Retirement Credits.
Survivor benefit election
Model none, 25%, or 50% survivor annuity elections. Each reduces your base pension by 0%, 5%, or 10% respectively.
Income replacement
Set your retirement spending as a percentage of your household salary today (yours plus your spouse’s while it is still being paid). The projection then draws from your TSP only to cover whatever your guaranteed income does not, so you are setting a spending target rather than a withdrawal rate.
Return during retirement
Set the average annual return on your savings after you retire. A lower return means the balance has to work harder to fund the same spending.
Spending pattern
Choose among four options: spending that keeps pace with inflation for life, or one of three research-based curves that reshape it with age. The curves are fitted on ages 60 to 90, so for a retirement before the early 60s two of them RISE for the first several years before the decline begins. Seeded from your saved assumption in Settings and adjustable right on the page without changing your saved plan.
Retirement Date
Retirement date is the single variable with the broadest downstream impact. Changing it affects almost every other number in your analysis simultaneously.
Years of service
Additional years increase your pension multiplier directly. Each extra year at a standard 1.0% multiplier adds 1% of your High-3 salary to your annual annuity for life.
High-3 salary
Staying longer typically means higher salary years enter your High-3 window, further increasing your pension base.
FERS supplement window
Retiring before 62 extends the period you receive the FERS Supplement. Retiring at 62 or later means you begin Social Security immediately instead.
MRA+10 reduction
Retiring at your MRA with 10–29 years of service triggers a 5% per year reduction for each year under 62, unless you postpone your annuity start date.
TSP growth time
Each additional working year means additional contributions, employer matching, and compound growth before withdrawals begin.
The timing tradeoff
Earlier retirement means more years of income, but at a lower annual rate. Later retirement means fewer years at a higher rate. Move the retirement date and watch how long your savings last under each choice.
TSP Strategy
How much you spend in retirement is one of the biggest levers over how long your savings last. You set a spending target as a percentage of your current household salary, and the projection draws from your TSP only to cover what your guaranteed income does not.
- Set your spending as a percentage of current household salary, the standard income-replacement framing
- Your pension, Social Security and other guaranteed income are applied first; the TSP funds only the gap
- A lower target shrinks the gap, so the balance lasts longer
- A higher target raises early spending but increases the risk of running short later
- You also set the average return your savings earn after you retire
Example: Spending Target on $100,000 of Household Salary
Total monthly spending targets on $100,000 of household salary. Your pension and Social Security cover part of this; the TSP funds the rest. Illustrative only.
Your Roth vs. Traditional split and fund allocation are set once in your baseline inputs and apply to every scenario. The TSP savings rate slider above is the exception: it varies your accumulation-phase contribution percentage per scenario.
Social Security Timing
When you claim Social Security is one of the highest-impact decisions a federal retiree makes. Scenario Comparison lets you set any claiming age from 62 to 70 and read its effect on your whole plan.
Claiming at 62
Earliest eligibility. Benefit is permanently reduced by up to 30% compared to Full Retirement Age (for those with FRA of 67): 20% for the first 36 months early + 10% for the remaining 24 months. Can make sense if longevity is a concern or income is needed immediately.
Claiming at FRA (66–67)
Your Full Retirement Age based on birth year. No reduction applied; this is your standard benefit amount as calculated by SSA.
Claiming at 70
Maximum benefit. Delayed Retirement Credits increase your benefit by approximately 8% per year past FRA, up to a 24–32% bonus over FRA benefit.
Compare claiming ages
Move the claiming-age control and read how each age changes your monthly benefit and how long your savings last, then move it back. Delayed claiming usually pays off past your late 70s or early 80s, so weigh each age against your own longevity expectations.
FERS-specific note: Because your pension provides a guaranteed income floor, FERS retirees are often well-positioned to delay Social Security to 67 or 70, maximizing the benefit they cannot outlive.
Survivor Benefit Election
The survivor benefit election is an irrevocable decision made at retirement. Scenario Comparison shows what each election costs your pension and what it leaves your spouse, so you can make it with full information.
Election
Pension reduction
Survivor receives
Best for
None (0%)
0%
$0/month
No spouse or spouse has own income / pension
Partial (25%)
5%
25% of your pre-reduction annuity
Supplemental protection; lower cost
Full (50%)
10%
50% of your pre-reduction annuity
Spouse depends on your income; longer expected lifespan gap
By switching the survivor election and reading the result, you can see the pension reduction each election costs against the protection it gives your spouse.
VERA, DSR & VSIP Early Retirement
When your agency offers an early-out (VERA), or an involuntary separation puts you on a Discontinued Service Retirement (DSR), you can model it. For a standard employee not already on an early-out plan, the retirement-date choices include a VERA earliest option, which uses the earliest date you could go under that authority and applies its eligibility rules.
- VERA lets you retire at age 50 with 20 years of service, or at any age with 25 years, when your agency has an authorized window
- DSR is the involuntary twin: the same age-and-service tracks, triggered by a RIF, an abolished position, or a directed reassignment outside your commuting area
- Both remove the MRA+10 age reduction, so the annuity is not cut 5% per year under age 62
- The FERS Supplement is preserved under both, starting at your MRA rather than your retirement date if you leave earlier
- Switch between the early-out date and a standard date to see what leaving early costs you across the whole chart, not just in year one
- A VSIP buyout is entered on the calculator wizard’s Retirement step, not here, because it is a fact about the offer rather than a decision you are weighing; the law limits VSIP to voluntary separations, so it never accompanies a DSR
Reading the Projection
Your settings produce a complete retirement analysis. The page shows it in two regions, the summary cards and the income chart. Here is how to read them:
Summary cards
Six cards: the income needed to fund your plan, your guaranteed income, the retirement age with the authority the engine resolved for that date, your projected TSP balance on that date, when the income you receive first falls short of the level you chose, and what is left at the end. All figures are before tax, and every card names its own dollar basis: the income cards are priced in the dollars of your first retirement year (today’s dollars only if you are already retired), and the TSP balance and end-of-plan cards state the calendar year each is priced in.
Income by source chart
One stacked bar per year, from your first year of retirement to the end of your plan. Each band is a source: FERS annuity, the FERS supplement, Social Security, spouse income, VA disability, other income such as rental or a private pension, and withdrawals from your savings. The white line is what you spend today, inflated the same way and shaped by your selected spending pattern. It is a reference only, and it is not drawn if you have not entered expenses.
Before-tax figures
Figures on this page are always before tax. For an after-tax view, use your dashboard or the Monte Carlo tool.
Required withdrawals
From age 73 or 75, depending on your birth year, the chart separates the withdrawal you must take from the one you chose to take. A tall required band late in the chart means the tax code, not your spending, is driving your income.
A deferred start
If the date you pick means your annuity cannot begin at separation, the page says so and names the age it does begin. Your savings have to cover the gap.
What Gets Saved
Your what-if settings are not saved. They are a question you are asking, not a change to your plan, so they last as long as you are on the page and reset when you leave. Your underlying retirement inputs stay exactly as you entered them in the calculator.
Your plan is untouched
Moving a control here never edits your saved inputs. To change your actual plan, use Edit Inputs in the calculator.
Reset to my plan
One button returns every control to the plan you entered, so you can always get back to your real starting point.
Nothing reaches a server
Your retirement inputs live only in your own browser. There is no account-side copy of your numbers, so there is nothing for us to lose.
Keeping a result
To keep a what-if result, note the settings you moved or screenshot the page. The PDF report always prints your SAVED plan, not the what-if projection on screen.
Contact
Have a question about a specific what-if scenario or need help interpreting a comparison? We're here to help.
RetireCiv Support
We typically respond within 2 business days.