In the case of the federal government, the tandem tools are a VERA (early retirement) and a VSIP (a buyout).

The maximum buyout payment ($25,000 before deductions, around $17,000 net) has not changed since 1994. Stuff, as you may have noticed, has gotten more expensive in the ensuing years. Yet Congress shows no sign of, or interest in, raising the amount of the VSIP.

Data shows that when early outs are accompanied by a buyout, lots of people take the bait. When it is just an early-out the take rate is often around 2 percent; maybe less in times like this when 401(k) (TSP) balances have plummeted and the outside job market continues to shrink.

Many federal agencies expect to grow as part of the economic stimulus program. Agencies that do reorganize or downsize, at least for now, are or will offer early retirements on a limited basis. But that could change.

For now, whether you are in a secure job at the SEC or DHS, or with an agency where the future is a little less bright, what's happening in the Postal Service bears watching.

The issue is what would it take to get you to go?

Currently the USPS is trying to lure 140,000 craft employees (and a smaller group of executives) to take early retirement. For the back story and the numbers, click here.

Many readers and listeners have suggested that the USPS could slim down drastically if would combine early outs with buyouts. Many retirement-age postal workers are hanging on, in hopes that the oft-rumored buyout will arrive. It could be a very, very long wait.

Here's why:

• The last time the USPS combined buyouts and early-outs it blew it big-time.

During the 1992-93 buyouts, the Postal Service gave many employees the equivalent of 6-months salary to leave. About 23,000 managers and 25,000 craft (clerks and letter carrier) employees left. Later on, the service discovered it had too many gaps in its management ranks and had to back-fill many of those jobs. In other words it paid the "wrong" people 6 months salary to leave, then had to replace them while paying lifetime (indexed to inflation) annuities to folks it should not have let go. And most of those employees were under the old CSRS retirement system which provides a more generous annuity than the FERS program, which covers many retirement eligible workers in the USPS and other agencies.

Here's how one postal insider put it:

Your March 26 column, "The Biggest Loser", covered the bases. As you hinted, congress will eventually bail us postal folk out. The question is not if, but HOW, HOW MUCH, and WHEN?

The old attrition models are no good, since 80 percent of workers are now under the FERS system. And they will be extending their careers due to TSP being hammered by the worst economy in 75 years. The conditions of the retirement law make it much more prohibitive (for FERS) to take the early out without being offered the extra incentive of a buyout. Ken in Missouri.

Nearly Useless Factoid
by Suzanne Kubota

"The most serious space weather event in history happened in 1859," reminds New Scientist magazine. It is known as the Carrington event.

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com