I work full time with a VA hospital clinic for nearly a decade now, but I'm not a veteran. I'm happy to discuss specific questions and answer what I can.
That is actually a very good and quite accurate brochure, by the way. My biggest complaint is that the CME funds of $1,000 per year are a joke compared to most non-VA positions my friends have that seem to offer on average $4,000.
Around 5.5-6.4 k biweekly depending on many factors.
That's odd. The brochure OP posted shows the basics. All you have to do to get vested in benefits is work at the VA for 5 years. You get 1% of your highest salary over a 3 year period if you retire at age 60 with 20 years service. If you retire at age 62 you get 1.1%.
Others answered your questions pretty well. Obviously, the salary mentioned on the brochure is just an example. You can get more or less offered to you depending on location and local leaderships interest in negotiating. I take less compensation in order to work 4 days per week, for example.
As wlfv said this is odd. I second that, it is very very odd. All they have to look for. It is not complicated at all.
I wish. No, you still pay your share just like anywhere else.
Yes, but you would have to retire at 62 to get vested in FERS, not 60 if you only work 5 years. So you'd want to start at age 57, lol. Rather than duplicate the government's efforts that our taxes have already funded, I'll just provide a link to the info right here: FERS Information
I saw this brochure first time. It does say VA pays employee portion of social and medicare taxes. But I have noticed that it is deducted from paycheck. If fact, they front load in the year social security taxes and don't deduct rest of the year when you reached the max.
In the brochure when it says VA pays on behalf of employee, are they referring to Employer portion of Social Security & Medicare NOT Employee portion? I suspect they mean Employer portion only which they're required by law. Employee still has to pay his/her portion. The way it is worded in the brochure "On behalf of Employee" sounds misleading the least.
The way that it is worded is misleading, since it is not a benefit at all, but a legal requirement. However if you ignore that and accept that they are just listing the total costs of an employee it can only be referring to the employer contribution for social security and medicare since these are costs (which they call "benefits") they pay in addition to salary. That wouldn't be the case for the employee contribution since it would be the absence of a deduction not an additional cost. Think of it as helping you to weigh up whether it is better to be a W2 v 1099 in terms of compensation.
They take Social security out of your check each paycheck until you hit the gross limit for the year, which for 2022 is $147,00. Benefits Planner | Social Security Tax Limits on Your Earnings | SSA
1% of 250,000 is $2500 a year . Sounds pretty low for a pension.
Yes...you shouldn't take the job if you're just planning to work for the feds for a year. It would be a minimum of $12.5k anyways since the pension doesn't kick in until 5 years of working. One of the primary benefits to an employer for a pension is that it motivates an employee to stay with a given institution. In this case, that institution is the federal government, so it's a pretty big benefit for both sides.
It's 1% multiplied by years of service. Computation
Having an extra annuity (aka pension) for retirement fixed costs (extra to SS) is even better than just the straight dollar amount because it allows you to be more aggressive with the rest of your profile (i.e. have more stocks and less bonds than the average old person). It's a great setup to have fixed income plus a 401k/TSP that one can invest in a broad based index fund. If there is reason to believe that modern monetary policy is here to stay, bond yields will likely lag the historic averages making ability to take risk with a portfolio even more important when attendings on this forum intend to retire.
I maxed out my ibonds last year and this year, but make no mistake, if they return this rate ongoing for several years or a decade, the US economy is going to have major problems and any gains in the ibonds will be dwarfed by an economy running that long of a heavy inflationary spiral.
I haven't heard of that. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, though. The easiest way to find out would be to call a VA hospital and ask to speak to Human Resources and ask, if a Google search doesn't turn up anything. I would imagine very few psychiatrists in training would want to commit to the VA before graduating.
Which VA is offering this? Thanks!
I signed a contract to work for the VA after residency.
Not sure about with psychiatrists, but from my perspective in psychology, it almost entirely depends on the specific VA and its leadership. I've worked/trained at VAs where multiple folks had alternative work schedules and at others where it was almost universally declined.
Having worked at a VA with psychiatry shortages, we were never able to negotiate a 4/10 work week. They did allow other liberties like WFH.
I negotiated my salary before I started at the VA, and renegotiate periodically. While there is a cap on base compensation for psychiatrists , there is some wiggle room. Local market pay also varies by region.
Supposedly we are all getting a 4.6% increase in January, but we won't know for sure until the President signs it. Technically doctors are title 38 employees, not GS. Nevertheless, like GS get an automatic "step increase" in pay if your performance is good. Steps 1-3 are every year, then steps 4-6 are every other year, and 7-10 every three years. Within-Grade Increases
It's applied automatically and is usually backdated to the first of the year, IIRC. It can sometimes take a few weeks for HR at your VA to implement it, but you'll get backpay. In my experiences from years past, the President usually signs the COL increase sometime in January or maybe February if it hadn't already been signed.
