Last night, Marjorie Taylor Green posted a 10-minute video to social media announcing her surprise retirement from Congress. Her retirement video listed a litany of gripes to explain her decision to step down. I’m not going to list her specific reasons. There were a bunch.
Not long after her video was posted, Marjorie’s critics were quick to point out that her planned retirement date, January 5, 2025, is two days after January 3, 2026. What’s special about January 3, 2026? On that day, Marjorie will have officially served in Congress for five years. And as such, her LIFETIME federal pension magically kicks in.
MTG’s critics are not wrong. I dug into this today. Five years is the minimum vesting threshold for a member of Congress to receive a pension. Anything less than five years and the pension disappears entirely. Anything more than five years, even by a day or two, locks in a lifetime benefit.
But before you get excited, you should also know that five years only qualifies MTG for the bare minimum pension benefit. It also doesn’t even kick in right away. If you want to really be astounded, wait til you hear the pensions Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Grassley have qualified for. After all, Nancy has served in Congress for 38 years and Chuck has served for FIFTY years.
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
What Marjorie Taylor Greene Will Receive After Five Years
Members of Congress elected after 1984 are covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System, or FERS. The formula is straightforward: take the Member’s high-three salary average, multiply it by the accrual rate, and then multiply that by years of service. Greene’s salary throughout her entire tenure has been the standard $174,000. Her high-three is therefore exactly $174,000. Her years of service will total five. Her accrual rate is 1.7% per year.
Here’s the math:
Pension = $174,000 × 0.017 × 5
Pension = $14,790 per year
That works out to roughly $1,232 per month.
And there is another catch. Greene cannot receive this pension until she turns 62 years old. Despite the political outrage, the financial reality is extremely modest. The minimum vesting threshold only unlocks the smallest possible benefit.
What Nancy Pelosi Will Receive After Nearly Forty Years
To understand how the formula scales, look at Nancy Pelosi. She entered Congress in 1987. She leaves in early 2027 after nearly four decades of service. She also served multiple years as Speaker, which raises her high-three salary to roughly $223,500.
Under FERS, Members receive 1.7% per year for the first 20 years and 1.0% per year for all additional years.
First 20 years: $223,500 × 0.017 × 20 = $75,990
Remaining 19.6 years: $223,500 × 0.010 × 19.6 = $43,806
Total = $119,796 per year
That equals about $9,983 per month, payable immediately upon retirement. Pelosi’s pension is roughly eight times larger than Greene’s, driven entirely by time in office and high leadership pay.
Nancy recently announced her decision to retire from Congress at the end of her current term. So she will begin to collect her pension in early 2027.
What Chuck Grassley Will Receive After Fifty Years
Now here’s where things get wild.
Chuck Grassley entered Congress in 1975, long before the modern retirement system existed. That places him under the Civil Service Retirement System, or CSRS, which is far more generous than FERS. CSRS uses a 2.5% accrual rate for each year of service. Grassley’s career covers roughly fifty years. His high-three salary is approximately $193,400 based on his periods as President Pro Tempore.
Under the CSRS formula, the raw calculation exceeds his entire salary:
$193,400 × 0.025 × 50 = $241,750
But congressional pensions under CSRS are capped at 80% of final salary.
So the maximum allowed pension is:
$193,400 × 0.80 = $154,720 per year
That is about $12,893 per month, for life. Grassley is essentially at the absolute ceiling for what any Member can legally earn.
Chuck Grassley infamously DOES NOT PLAN TO RETIRE. As recently as August, he indicated his intention to run for reelection in 2028, at which point he would be around 95 years old. He only receives his pension if he actually retires. So what’s he doing? Why not retire? Would the pension just go away if he died tomorrow? No.
Grassley’s wife, Barbara Grassley, would be eligible for a survivor’s annuity, which is a reduced version of his full pension. Under CSRS, which is what Grassley is under:
CSRS Survivor Benefit Rules
• The maximum survivor annuity is 55% of the Member’s earned pension.
• Survivors must have been married to the Member at the time of death.
• Survivor benefits begin immediately upon the Member’s death.
Grassley’s computed pension (capped at 80% of final salary) is about $154,720 per year.
Survivor annuity:
55% × $154,720 = $85,096 per year
Which is about $7,091 per month.
But common sense does scream that Chuck should retire, let some new blood into Congress and then go enjoy nearly $13,000 per month!!!
The Bottom Line
Marjorie Taylor Greene did time her resignation to qualify for her pension. That part is true. But the benefit she earned after five years is relatively small, delayed, and nowhere near the huge figures people imagine when they hear “lifetime pension.”
At the other end of the spectrum, a half-century in Congress combined with enrollment in the older, more generous retirement system produces a benefit as large as federal law allows.
That is the difference between five years and fifty years.
