PSERS Pennsylvania Pension Calculator

PSERS is two plans stacked on top of each other

Every member hired on or after July 1, 2019 is automatically enrolled in Class T-G. It pays a pension calculated from your service and salary history, and it opens a defined contribution account in your name. Your payroll deduction splits between the two, and your employer contributes to the DC side. You have to read both halves to know what you are building.

New members get a one-time, 90-day window to opt out of the default and elect one of two alternatives: Class T-H, a hybrid with a smaller pension and a slightly larger DC account, or Class DC, which drops the pension entirely. The election is irrevocable and follows you to any later Pennsylvania school employer.

Class T-G, Class T-H and Class DC compared

The trade reads clearly once the rows sit side by side. T-H buys a cheaper payroll deduction and a slightly larger DC contribution by surrendering a fifth of the multiplier and the Rule of 97. Class DC moves longevity risk from the state onto you. For a career employee, T-G is usually richest.

Older classes cover many current members

If you were hired before July 1, 2019, none of that is your plan. Class T-C pays a 2.5% multiplier, Class T-E pays 2.0% and Class T-F pays 2.5%, and all three use a three-year final average salary rather than five. A member hired in 2005 and one hired in 2020 share a system and almost nothing else. Check your class first.

How the pension half is computed

The defined benefit side of Class T-G uses the standard PSERS shape with a low multiplier:

Final average salary for T-G and T-H is the average of your five highest school-year salaries. Older classes use three. Stretching the averaging window lowers the result for anyone whose pay rose steadily, a second reduction underneath the smaller multiplier.

That $28,125 is only the pension. The same member also holds a DC account built from 2.75% of pay plus a 2.25% employer contribution over 30 years, and — unlike teachers in Texas, California, Ohio or Massachusetts — a Social Security benefit earned on the same wages. Reading the 1.25% alone badly understates the plan.

The Rule of 97

Class T-G has two routes to an unreduced pension. The first is age 67 with at least three years of service. The second is the Rule of 97: age plus years of service totalling 97 or more,and at least 35 years of credited service. The service floor is what makes the rule narrow. Age 62 with 35 years qualifies. Age 67 with 30 years also sums to 97 but fails the 35-year test.

Class T-H members do not have the Rule of 97 at all. Their only route to a full benefit is age 67. For a long-career employee that is the largest practical difference between the hybrids, and it is easy to miss when they are compared on multiplier alone.

Early retirement, and a number PSERS does not publish

Class T-G offers a special early retirement at age 57 with 25 years of service. Otherwise the reduction is actuarial, not a fixed published percentage. The same factors apply between ages 62 and 67, or at any age below 62 once you have 25 years of service. Below 62 with fewer than 25 years, the age-62-to-67 factor is compounded with a second factor running from your actual age up to 62, so the reductions stack.

What the DC half actually builds

For a Class T-G member, 2.75% of pay goes into the defined contribution account and the employer adds 2.25% — 5.00% of salary a year into an individual investment account on top of the pension. It vests separately, at three eligibility points rather than ten years, which matters for anyone leaving before a full career.

The account carries investment risk you bear personally and pays no guaranteed lifetime income. It is portable and inheritable in a way a pension is not. Treat it as a workplace retirement account that lives inside PSERS.

Shared risk and shared gain

The DB portion of the contribution rate for T-G and T-H is not fixed. A shared risk and shared gain provision reviews the preceding ten years of investment performance every three years and moves the member DB rate up or down by as much as 0.75%. Underperformance costs members money. Outperformance gives it back.

The review covering July 1, 2013 through June 30, 2023 produced a shared gain, and rates dropped back to base effective July 1, 2024: T-G from 6.25% to 5.50%, T-H from 5.25% to 4.50%. The 5.50% in the table above is the current figure.

PSERS members do pay into Social Security

This is the fact that reframes the rest of the page. PSERS states it plainly: all employees who become members on and after January 1, 1966 are in the dual coverage group, and dual coverage members contribute to both PSERS and to Social Security. Pennsylvania school employees earn Social Security credit for their teaching years.

That is the sharpest contrast with the teacher systems in Texas, California, Ohio and Massachusetts, where most members sit outside Social Security for their school employment. It is also why comparing multipliers across states misleads. A Texas teacher earns 2.3% a year and, for the great majority, no Social Security on those earnings. A Pennsylvania T-G member earns 1.25%, plus 5.00% of salary into a DC account, plus Social Security on a full career of covered wages. The multiplier looks thin because it is one piece of three.

The COLA, and the very large asterisk on it

PSERS pays no automatic cost-of-living adjustment. The system is direct: COLAs are not a guaranteed part of your PSERS pension benefit, and the Retirement Code formula does not include an automatic one. Only the General Assembly can grant an increase, and for more than twenty years it did not.

That changed in 2026. Act 21 of 2026, part of the FY2026-27 budget enacted through Senate Bill 146, was signed by Governor Shapiro on July 12, 2026 and took effect July 1, 2026 — the first PSERS COLA in over two decades. Payments began with the September 30, 2026 benefit, including retroactive July and August amounts. It reaches roughly 31,200 retirees at a cost of about $104 million in FY2026-27.

So the honest summary: PSERS granted a COLA in 2026, and anyone retiring today still has no COLA. One act after a twenty-year gap shows increases are possible, not scheduled. Budget your pension as a fixed dollar amount for life.

What people get wrong

• Letting the 90-day election window lapse. The default is permanent and irrevocable. T-G is defensible, but it should be a choice.
• Reading the 2026 COLA as applying to them. It covers only members who retired on or before July 1, 2001. Active members and Class T-G get nothing from Act 21.
• Comparing the 1.25% multiplier across states without adjusting for Social Security. PSERS members are covered. Most Texas, California, Ohio and Massachusetts teachers are not.
• Treating the Rule of 97 like the Rule of 80 elsewhere. It also demands 35 years of credited service, and Class T-H does not have it at all.
• Applying the 1.25% multiplier to pre-2019 service. Classes T-C, T-E and T-F pay 2.0% to 2.5% on a three-year final average salary.
• Using the 6.25% and 5.25% rates from the official election PDF. The shared gain cut them to 5.50% and 4.50% on July 1, 2024.

Plan data on this page was last checked against the system’s own published material on September 19, 2026. Retirement systems change their rules; if you spot something out of date, tell us.