The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is one of the most popular benefits for federal employees. Here is a quick summary of some of the latest facts pertaining to the TSP.
The TSP recently noted that December 2019 topped a historic year for roll-ins to the TSP from other eligible retirement accounts. There were over 3,100 transactions in that month with an annual total of almost 35,000 roll-ins to the program. The cash-in flow was $143 million in December with a year-end total of about $1.34 billion– a historic high mark.
As of the end of December 2019, the TSP plan balance was almost $633 billion. For comparison, at the end of December 2018, the TSP plan balance was more than $536 billion—an increase of more than 18 percent in one year.
Average TSP Balance for FERS
The number of people participating in the TSP has also increased over the past year.
At the end of December 2018, there were 5,507,917 participants in the TSP. At that time, the average balance for FERS employees was $132,874. By the end of December 2019, there were 5,689,805 total participants in the TSP and the average FERS TSP balance was $151,731.
This is an increase of 3.3 percent in the number of TSP participants and an increase of about 14.2% in the average TSP balance for those in the FERS retirement program.
The number of people who have a Roth balance also increased in the past year. At the end of December 2018, there were 531,665 Roth participants under the FERS system and by the end of 2019, there were 619,116 Roth participants under this retirement plan. The average Roth balance also went up from $12,209 to $15,586—an increase of 27.6 percent in one year—for FERS employees.
For CSRS employees (a much smaller number of employees), the average Roth balance went from $18,991 to $23,381—an increase of 23.1 percent.
