OPM Tweaks Survivor Annuity Math for Former Feds
Published Date: 6/23/2026
Rule
Summary
The Office of Personnel Management is updating how they calculate survivor annuities for spouses of federal employees who left their jobs and then passed away before qualifying for full retirement benefits. This change affects those spouses by adjusting the reduction factors for early payments, starting August 24, 2026. If you’re a spouse in this situation, this update could impact the money you receive from the retirement system.
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 0 costs, 1 mixed.
Revised Survivor Annuity Reduction Factors
If you are the current or former spouse of a federal employee who had separated from service and then died before becoming eligible for an unreduced deferred annuity, the tables used to reduce an earlier-starting survivor annuity have been revised and will take effect August 24, 2026. OPM expects the rule to affect about 1 percent of survivor annuity applications based on deaths of separated employees and the revised factors are intended to make earlier-starting annuities actuarially equivalent under the Board’s June 2025 actuarial assumptions.
36-Installment Death Benefit Factors Unchanged
If you are a surviving spouse who elects to receive the basic employee death benefit as 36 installment payments, the factors used to convert the lump sum into 36 installments remain unchanged based on the Board’s June 16, 2025 review. That treatment remains in place when this rule takes effect August 24, 2026.
Removed Table Column for 1950–1966 Birth Years
OPM removed the column of factors that applied to individuals born from 1950 through 1966 because those individuals have already reached minimum retirement age; this edit appears in the revised appendix effective August 24, 2026. If you were born between 1950 and 1966 inclusive, the removed column means the early-commencing conversion factors in that column no longer appear in the table.
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