Annuitants in the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) who have not reached age 62 receive no annual cost-of-living adjustment, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recognizes four groups of exceptions. The rule returns to attention because the Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to publish the September consumer price index on October 14, 2026, and that reading feeds the adjustment OPM applies to FERS annuities each December.
The age bar is separate from the percentage formula that sets the size of an adjustment. A FERS annuitant outside the four groups and under 62 on December 1 gets nothing in a given year, whatever the inflation figure turns out to be. The groups below are the full set of exceptions in OPM’s own handbook, and each is named here as the agency words it.
The under-62 bar in 5 U.S.C. 8462(c)(3)
The federal statute states that an adjustment “shall not be effective with respect to the annuity of an annuitant who is under 62 years of age,” then lists carve-outs by reference to other sections of the code, according to the text of 5 U.S.C. 8462. The bar falls on the adjustment, not on the annuity itself: the base monthly payment continues as normal.
OPM’s CSRS/FERS Handbook sets the test date at December 1. FERS cost-of-living adjustments, the handbook says, do not apply to annuitants who are under age 62 as of that date, except in the situations below. OPM’s consumer page on cost-of-living adjustments puts the general rule the same way: most retirees become eligible at 62, and FERS annuitants under 62 are not eligible unless certain conditions are met.
The four groups OPM exempts from the bar
The handbook’s list of exceptions has four entries, reproduced here in OPM’s order:
- Disability annuitants, including military reserve technicians who are medically disqualified for military service or for the rank required to hold their positions.
- Military reserve technicians whose separation from technician service resulted from loss of military membership or rank on account of disability, after attaining age 50 and completing 25 years of service.
- Employees who retired under the special provisions for law enforcement officers, firefighters or air traffic controllers.
- Spouse, former spouse and insurable interest survivor annuitants.
The third group traces to sections of the code cited in the statute. Section 8412(d)(1) covers law enforcement officers, members of the Capitol Police or Supreme Court Police, firefighters, nuclear materials couriers and customs and border protection officers, while section 8412(e) covers air traffic controllers, per the text of 5 U.S.C. 8412.
The fourth entry bundles three kinds of survivor annuitant into one line. OPM’s handbook says FERS survivor annuities are increased by cost-of-living adjustments after they commence even though the survivor is not yet 62. Counted the way OPM counts, the exceptions come to four groups; counted by annuitant type, the disability, reserve technician, protective-service and three survivor categories would add up to more, but OPM’s own list is four.
Why CSRS retirees sit outside the bar
The age-62 rule belongs to FERS. In the same handbook section, OPM compares the two systems and states that under the Civil Service Retirement System, retirees may receive a cost-of-living adjustment at any age. A retiree’s system therefore decides whether the bar applies at all, which makes the label “federal retirees” too broad for this rule. Only annuitants under FERS face it, and only until they reach 62 or fall into one of the four groups above.
What the October 14 consumer price index report sets in motion
The BLS release schedule lists the September 2026 consumer price index for October 14, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, per the agency’s CPI release calendar. The page notes that the calendar is updated as needed, usually at least a week before a scheduled release, and showed no change notice for the September report when it was read on October 4, 2026.
OPM’s handbook sets out how FERS adjustments track inflation for annuitants who are eligible. When the price index rises by up to 2.0 percent, the adjustment equals that rise. When the rise falls between 2.0 and 3.0 percent, the adjustment is fixed at 2.0 percent. Above 3.0 percent, the adjustment equals the rise minus 1.0 percentage point. For 2026, OPM states, annuitants who retired under FERS received a 2.0 percent increase, and the rate varies each year.
The timing is also laid out by OPM: if an adjustment is payable, the agency makes the change in December and the adjusted payment arrives in January, the following month. Under-62 annuitants outside the four groups would see no change in that January payment, because the statute makes the adjustment ineffective for them regardless of the percentage.
OPM’s handbook is the controlling text on who is excused: FERS cost-of-living adjustments do not apply to annuitants under age 62 as of December 1, except disability annuitants, qualifying military reserve technicians, law enforcement, firefighter and air traffic controller retirees, and spouse, former spouse and insurable interest survivors.
Spending order for retirement accounts and its tax effect
Retirees who draw income from several accounts face a sequencing decision that no agency notice works out for them. Which account a withdrawal comes from first decides how much of a retirement income is taxed.
The Retirement Tax & Withdrawal Planner is a 12-page planner with four calculators (provisional income, IRMAA tier, RMD schedule and Roth bracket fill) and a section on the account withdrawal order.
Open the planner to see how withdrawal order changes a tax bill →
Drafted with AI assistance from OPM, BLS and statutory text, then checked against those sources before publication.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
