Civilians get 5% only if they put in 5% themselves. Your quote on the article says "the gov match could go as high as 5%, if the service member puts in that much" So the same potential match % as civilian. Civilian doesn't get 5% match unless they also put in 5% themselves voluntarily. Gov default contrib for civilians is 1% even if a civilian tsp'er isn't putting their own contributions in voluntarily.
Reading the fine print in the bill here, the main difference in this bill is that if the servicemember goes for a year without voluntarily contributing a portion of their pay, the gov will, the following year, start doing it for them, 3% of their pay with 1% gov match. If the service member doesn't like that the gov is making that decision for them, then they can voluntarily sign up and the gov will match whatever they voluntarily contribute, up to 5%. kinda like the civilian side, except nobody's forcing us to contribute if we don't want to. We get 1% from gov either way, just like the service member.
Bookmarks