Appendix C

Thrift Savings Plan

Participant Behavior 

and Demographics(FERS)

Analysis of 2018 – 2022
2

Introduction

This analysis of Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) participant demographics prepared by the Federal 

Retirement Thrift Investment Board is based on participant data. The analysis of calendar year 

2022 data is similar to analysis of data conducted in the previous year.

As with the 2021 report, the 2022 analysis will focus solely on participants in the Federal 

Employee Retirement System (FERS). Information from this analysis provides insight on 

demographics, investment behaviors, and how plan design changes may have influenced 

participation and contribution behaviors. Finally, this analysis helps identify trends with 

participant usage of benefit options.

Background

The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board is an independent Federal agency that was 

established to administer the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) under the Federal Employees’ 

Retirement System Act of 1986 (See 5 U.S.C. §§ 8351; 8401 et seq.). Like the type of savings 

and tax benefits that many private corporations offer their employees under I.R.C. §401(k)

plans, the TSP provides Federal civilian employees and members of the uniformed services the 

opportunity to save for additional retirement security. The Agency’s mission is to act solely in the 

interest of its participants and beneficiaries.

TSP participants can invest their employee and employer contributions in the following core 

funds:

• Government Securities Investment Fund (G Fund)

• Fixed Income Index Investment Fund (F Fund)

• Common Stock Index Investment Fund (C Fund)

• Small Cap Stock Index Investment Fund (S Fund)

• International Stock Index Investment Fund (I Fund)

In addition to these indexed core funds, participants may also invest in ten Lifecycle Funds (L 

Funds). The L Funds are custom target-date funds, provided in five-year intervals, invested 

exclusively in the G, F, C, S, and I Funds. TSP added six additional funds, and retired the L 

2020 Fund, on July 1, 2020.

During the five-year period covered by this report, the TSP underwent a few major plan design

changes: in January 2018, the Blended Retirement System (BRS) was implemented, and on 

October 1, 2020, TSP raised the default deferral rate to 5% from 3%. Additionally, on June 1st, 

2022, FRTIB changed recordkeeper; one of the changes allowed for participants to be able to 

take out a second General-Purpose Loan. Please note that BRS implementation analysis will 

not be covered in this report as it is a separate system from FERS.
3

Data Collection and Methodology

This report is based on data extracted from the TSP recordkeeping system for all TSP 

participants identified as active civilian Federal employees covered by the FERS retirement 

system.

In the same manner as previous reports, agency 1% automatic contributions were used to 

estimate salary. This value is then used to calculate salary quintiles and the average deferral 

rate. This method excludes overtime and performance awards, so does not represent the total 

employee compensation. The effect is that the average deferral rate (calculated using a smaller 

denominator) will be higher using this methodology but will largely match the participant’s 

elected deferral rate percentage. This effect is expected to be roughly equivalent across salary 

ranges, so the use of salary quintiles will mitigate the impact.

In this report, salaries are shown in quintiles. The first quintile represents the 20% of all records 

in the lowest annual salary band; the fifth quintile represents the 20% of records in the highest 

salary band.

In summary, the analysis provided in this report is subject to the following limitations:

The calculation of salary based on automatic 1% contributions may modestly distort 

the findings compared to reports prior to 2016 when OPM data was last available, 

showing a higher rate but one more representative of the participant’s actual deferral 

choice.

The inclusion of TSP accounts for employees of the legislative and judicial branches 

may modestly alter the findings when compared to reports prior to 2016.

The TSP recordkeeping system does not hold information on a participant’s work 

schedule. However, the inclusion of TSP accounts for part-time and intermittent 

workers is likely to have a more meaningful impact on the findings compared to 

reports prior to 2016. Since this group is likely to participate and contribute at lower 

rates than full-time employees, its inclusion will also likely result in lower estimated 

participation and contribution rates (versus an analysis including only full-time 

employees), particularly for the lowest salary quintile.

Employees’ actual deferral rate elections are not included in the TSP databases. 

Therefore, an approximation of annualized deferral rate is calculated by comparing 

the actual total employee contributions to the estimated annual salary rate for each 

calendar year.

In 2022, the automatic enrollment status codes which were previously used for this 

report were discontinued. Instead, this report looks at TSP status codes which is 

directly provided by the agency payroll offices instead of derived based on accounts. 

Because of the new data source, year over year comparison is advised against.
4

Analysis

The following sections of this report examine the behaviors of FERS participants across a fiveyear timeframe ending December 31, 2022, and through the lens of two demographic filters –

age and salary. The graphics and narratives summarize the relationships between these 

demographic factors and participant behaviors associated with participation and automatic 

enrollment, deferral rates, investment allocation, and loan and hardship withdrawal usage.

Plan Participation

As of December 31, 2022, there were 3,901,387 FERS participants with a traditional account 

and 916,713 participants with a Roth account. The average account balance for traditional 

accounts was $157,325 and the average account balance for Roth accounts was $21,784.

The FERS participation rate dropped by a 0.4 percentage point year over year, with a 

participation rate of 95.1% at the end of 2022. Figure 1 illustrates the improvement and then

95% plateau in the participation rate since the implementation of automatic enrollment for new 

hires in 2010. The automatic enrollment policy automatically defers 5%1 of new employees’ 

salaries into the TSP unless the employee makes an active election not to participate in the 

Plan or to lower the contribution amount.

Figure 1

Automatic enrollment has also led to improvements in the participation of the youngest and 

lowest paid. Reversing historical precedent, the younger the participant, the more likely they

are to participate. As these participants are also the most likely to have been hired after the 

introduction of automatic enrollment in 2010, there is a clear linkage between the trend in these 

rates and automatic enrollment. See Table 1 below. The gap in participation rates between the 

highest paid and lowest paid increased year over year with a 2.9 percentage point gap in 2021 

versus a 3.7 percentage point gap in 2022 but is still below the 4.4 percentage point difference 

we saw in 2018. 

1 Default deferral rate for automatically enrolled participants increased from 3% to 5% on October 1, 2020.

93.3% 93.8% 94.6% 95.5% 95.1%

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Annual FERS Participation Rates
5

Table 1

Annual FERS Participation Rates by Demographic Cohorts

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Age

<= 29 97.1% 97.1% 97.3% 97.7% 96.7%

30 – 39 95.3% 95.7% 96.2% 97.1% 96.5%

40 – 49 92.9% 93.7% 94.6% 95.8% 95.5%

50 – 59 92.2% 92.7% 93.5% 94.6% 94.5%

60 – 69 91.4% 91.9% 92.6% 93.3% 93.3%

70+ 87.6% 88.2% 88.6% 89.6% 89.7%

Salary Quintile

Q1 Lowest Paid 92.5% 92.9% 93.8% 94.9% 93.8%

Q2 Lower Paid 90.1% 91.1% 92.2% 93.9% 93.6%

Q3 Mid-Range 91.3% 91.7% 92.9% 93.9% 94.1%

Q4 Higher Paid 94.9% 95.2% 95.7% 96.4% 96.3%

Q5 Highest Paid 96.9% 97.0% 97.4% 97.8% 97.5%

Auto-enrollment has been impactful in increasing participation rates, with each salary quintile 

only having 2% or less of participants opting out of making contributions. In addition, autoenrolled participants have demonstrated a relatively high degree of engagement with the TSP

particularly with the highest salary where 59% of the group made a deferral rate change. There 

are still plenty of participants who do not make any change after auto-enrollment, particularly in 

the lowest paid quintile where 58% of participants made no change from the 5% auto-deferral 

rate.

Figure 2

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Q1 Lowest Paid Q2 Lower Paid Q3 Mid Range Q4 Higher Paid Q5 Highest Paid

Percent of AE Participants

FERS Automatic Enrollment Status by Salary 

Quintile

Auto-Enrolled Opted Out Deferral Change
6

Deferral Rates

The FERS average deferral percentage rate (ADP) (includes employee Roth, traditional and 

catch-up contributions) has previously leveled around 7.9%; however, it has steadily increased 

since 2019 (see figure 3). The FERS deferral rate exceeds the 7.1% ADP of other defined

contribution plans according to Deloitte2 and the 7.3% ADP for automatic plans according to 

Vanguard3. However, it is still significantly lower than the 9.5% FERS deferral rates of the mid2000s. This drop is likely a side effect of 

automatic enrollment. While autoenrollment increased the participation rate

by including many new participants who 

would not otherwise have been participating, 

many auto-enrolled participants have 

continued to contribute at the 3% or 5% 

default level. The increase in new 

participants at the default level caused the 

average deferral rate to slowly decline; 

however, the increase in the default deferral rate in 2020 from 3% to 5% has caused the 

average deferral rate to increase again.

Figure 4 below illustrates the power of plan design on participant behavior. FERS participants 

receive dollar-for-dollar matching contributions on the first 3% of pay and 50 cents on the dollar 

on the next 2%. The full match is achieved with a 5% contribution. Consequently, deferral rates 

aggregate in the 5-6% range, with 39.9% of TSP contributors being in this range in 2022. The 

impact of automatic enrollment can clearly be seen as the percent of participants contributing 

less than 5% shows a steady decline while the percent at the default contribution rate of 5% 

grew. Still of significance, 13.8% of participants are not receiving the full matching contribution 

as they are contributing less than 5%. This is a decrease of 7.7 percentage points from 2021.

Figure 4

2

“For [Non-highly compensated employees], the median ADP was 6.2% . . ., while the median ADP for [highly 

compensated employees was 7.8%....... ” Deloitte, Annual Defined Contribution Benchmarking Survey – Ease of

Use Drives Engagement in Saving for Retirement, 2019 Edition.

3

“The average deferral rate was 7.3% in 2021.” Vanguard, How America Saves 2022.

Figure 3

7.9% 7.9% 8.1% 8.4%

8.9%

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

FERS Deferral Rates 

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Participants

Distribution of FERS Deferral Rates

0 - 2%

3 - 4%

5 - 6%

7 - 8%

9 - 10%

11 - 12%

13 - 14%

15%

> 15%

Deferral 

Rate 

Bands
7

The lowest-paid participants are deferring the least – 3.6 percentage points less than the 

highest paid. This interval is again shrinking after expanding in 2020, but not quite as low as 

2019 where the gap was 3.3 percentage points. However, with an average deferral rate of 6.8%, 

many of the lowest paid are still receiving the full match. Deferral rates for all salaries increased

in 2022 over 2021. The youngest participants have the lowest average deferral rates, with

deferrals steadily increasing with each age bracket, except for over 70 years or older. Notably, 

deferral rates for participants over the age of 50 decreased from 2021, which is a minor change 

in trend from previous years. See Table 2.

Table 2

Annual FERS Deferral Rates by Demographic

Cohorts

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Age

<= 29 5.4% 5.5% 5.8% 6.2% 6.6%

30 – 39 6.6% 6.6% 6.8% 7.1% 7.3%

40 – 49 7.3% 7.3% 7.6% 7.8% 7.9%

50 – 59 9.1% 9.1% 9.3% 9.5% 9.4%

60 – 69 10.0% 10.0% 10.2% 10.3% 10.1%

70+ 10.5% 10.4% 10.5% 10.6% 10.0%

Salary Quintile

Q1 Lowest Paid 5.9% 6.6% 6.1% 6.5% 6.8%

Q2 Lower Paid 6.9% 6.8% 7.0% 7.1% 7.8%

Q3 Mid-Range 8.1% 8.1% 8.3% 8.7% 8.9%

Q4 Higher Paid 9.0% 9.1% 9.3% 9.5% 9.9%

Q5 Highest Paid 9.8% 9.9% 10.0% 10.2% 10.4%

Roth TSP was introduced in May 2012, allowing participants to make contributions from aftertax dollars, and for their earnings on those contributions to be tax-free at withdrawal (as long as 

certain IRS requirements are met). While the majority of participants continue to make only 

traditional (pre-tax) contributions, deferrals to Roth TSP are increasing. For those contributing to 

Roth, their average deferrals were 7.1%, versus the average traditional deferral rate of 8.0%. In 

previous years these statistics excluded catch up contributions but for the 2022, catch-up 

contributions are included, so in Figure 5 you can see an increase year over year. Prior to 2022 

Traditional rates had maintained steady between 7.3-7.5% and are now 0.5% higher in 2022.

Roth deferral rates increased by over 1 percentage points, a difference from the 0.1-0.2% 

increase trend from previous years.

Figure 5

7.4% 7.3% 7.4% 7.5% 8.0% 5.2% 5.3% 5.7% 5.9% 7.1%

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

FERS Deferral Rates by Contribution Type

Traditional

Roth
8

Roth deferral rates are highest among our oldest and highest paid participants. However, all

demographic cohorts experienced an increase in Roth deferrals in 2022 over 2021. (See Table 

3.)

Table 3

FERS Traditional and Roth Deferral Rates

by Demographic Cohorts

2020 2021 2022

Traditional Roth Traditional Roth Traditional Roth

Age

<= 29 4.7% 5.7% 5.1% 5.9% 5.7% 6.9%

30 – 39 6.0% 5.6% 6.1% 5.9% 6.5% 6.7%

40 – 49 6.9% 5.2% 7.1% 5.5% 7.4% 6.4%

50 – 59 8.6% 5.9% 8.7% 6.1% 9.0% 7.4%

60 – 69 9.5% 6.9% 9.5% 7.1% 9.8% 8.7%

70+ 10.0% 8.2% 10.0% 8.3% 10.4% 10.6%

Salary Quintile

Q1 Lowest Paid 5.5% 5.2% 5.8% 5.6% 5.9% 6.4%

Q2 Lower Paid 6.4% 5.3% 6.3% 5.6% 6.9% 6.6%

Q3 Mid-Range 7.6% 5.9% 7.8% 6.2% 8.0% 7.1%

Q4 Higher Paid 8.5% 6.1% 8.6% 6.4% 8.9% 7.4%

Q5 Highest Paid 9.4% 6.0% 9.5% 6.1% 9.7% 7.5%

Investment Allocation

Until September 2015, contributions for automatically enrolled 

participants were defaulted into the Government Securities 

Investment (G) Fund. With the passage of the Smart Savings 

Act, Public Law 113-255, the default investment fund for new 

participants changed from the G Fund to an age-appropriate 

Lifecycle (L) Fund.

In Figure 6, we note that allocations to the G Fund increase with 

age; the youngest participants only hold 5% of their assets in the

G Fund. This behavior is consistent with the expectation that 

participants tend to shift their investment

allocation toward the relative safety of guaranteed/income producing assets as they approach

retirement age. This is also a significant improvement from 2014, when the youngest 

participants held 41.7% of their assets in the G Fund.

The youngest participants 

who have the longest time 

horizon to reap the 

benefits of compounding 

returns have 5.2% of their 

assets invested in the G 

Fund. This is a continual 

and significant decline 

from previous years.
9

Figure 6

As noted in Table 4, the lowest-paid participants have approximately 35.5% allocated to the G 

fund; this contrasts with the highest paid, who allocated only 24.8% to the G Fund in 2022. All 

cohorts, except for participants 29 and younger, have increased their investment in the G Fund 

compared to 2021 investment allocations, a change in trend from 2019-2021.

When examining L Fund allocations, the youngest age cohort had the highest level of utilization 

at 66.5%, which continues to increase each year. The oldest cohort has the lowest level of L 

Fund utilization at 13.2%; this has decreased slightly from 2021. The increase in L Fund 

utilization for younger participants is likely influenced by the default investment changing from 

the G Fund to an age- appropriate L Fund in 2015, as well as the impact of ongoing 

communications regarding the benefits of utilizing the L Funds. Participants over 60 allocated

more to the G fund over any other fund including the L funds. 

Table 4

2022 Investment Allocations by Demographic

Cohorts

G Fund F Fund C Fund S Fund I Fund L Funds

Age

<= 29 5.0% 0.4% 18.7% 7.4% 2.0% 66.5%

30 – 39 16.4% 1.0% 24.8% 11.6% 3.9% 42.3%

40 – 49 20.5% 1.8% 29.5% 12.8% 5.1% 30.3%

50 – 59 30.1% 2.8% 32.4% 9.6% 3.8% 21.3%

60 – 69 40.5% 3.3% 27.8% 7.2% 3.0% 18.2%

70+ 47.2% 3.8% 27.0% 6.1% 2.6% 13.2%

Salary Quintile

Q1 Lowest Paid 35.7% 1.6% 18.2% 6.4% 2.4% 35.6%

Q2 Lower Paid 40.4% 2.0% 23.7% 7.8% 2.8% 23.4%

Q3 Mid-Range 36.9% 2.3% 27.3% 8.8% 3.2% 21.6%

Q4 Higher Paid 29.4% 2.2% 28.1% 10.8% 3.9% 25.6%

Q5 Highest Paid 24.8% 2.9% 33.2% 10.4% 4.4% 24.4%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

<= 29 30 - 39 40 - 49 50 - 59 60 - 69 70+

Percent Allocated

FERS Investment Allocation By Age

G Fund

F Fund

C Fund

S Fund

I Fund

Lifecycle Funds
10

As discussed earlier, TSP launched 6 additional L Funds and retired the L 2020 Fund in July 

2020. These new L Funds added 5-year L Funds up to the L 2065 Fund. Of the participants 

utilizing the L Funds, the allocation is largely as we would expect. Those in the age 29-andunder cohort were taking advantage primarily of the L2050 Fund with utilization of the new L 

Funds (L 2055, L 2060, L 2065) increasing over 2021 levels. Participants in the 40-49 age 

group were in the L 2040 Fund, as we would expect for their retirement investment. The age 

50-59 cohort was aggregated in the L 2030 Fund. Participants aged 60 and older have their 

assets split between the L Income and L 2030 funds. Participants aged 60-69 have more 

assets in the L 2030 fund over the L income fund, while participants aged 70 and over are 

mostly in the L Income fund.

Figure 7

The L Funds' strategy is to invest in an appropriate mix of the G, F, C, S, and I Funds for a 

particular time horizon. The investment mix of each L Fund becomes more conservative as its 

target date approaches. Thus, the participant only needs to invest in one L Fund to achieve 

diversification among the core funds. In 2022 the share of participants with assets in the L 

Funds crossed 50%, meaning over half of participants now invest at least some of their TSP 

assets in the L Funds. By the end of 2022, the share of participants with all their assets in the L 

Funds was at 32.34%, meaning nearly one third of all participants have money solely in the L 

Funds. 

As shown in Figure 8, the use of one L Fund is most common with the two youngest age

cohorts – 75% for participants 29 and under and 49.5% for participants 30 to 39. The use of a 

single L Fund has been increasing each year among the younger cohorts. Most participants do 

not invest solely in one core fund. Among those who do so, the most popular choice is the G 

Fund. Investing solely in the G Fund is problematic for any age, as the G Fund is not 

guaranteed to keep up with inflation. If not invested in a single L Fund, participants are most 

likely allocating across multiple funds. See Figure 8.

Since 2014, the most significant change has been seen in the younger age groups where there 

was a meaningful increase in the number solely invested in one L fund and a decrease in the 

percentage solely invested in the G fund. This was likely influenced by the change to an ageappropriate L fund as the default investment in 2015.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

<= 29 30 - 39 40 - 49 50 - 59 60 - 69 70+

Percent Allocated

FERS L Fund Investment Allocation By Age

L 2065 Fund

L 2060 Fund

L 2055 Fund

L 2050 Fund

L 2045 Fund

L 2040 Fund

L 2035 Fund

L 2030 Fund

L 2025 Fund

Income Fund
11

Figure 8

Loan and Hardship Withdrawal Usage

The TSP allows two types of loans – general purpose and residential. A general purpose loan 

has a repayment term of 1 to 5 years, while a residential loan for the purchase of a primary 

residence has a repayment term of 1 to 15 years. On June 1, 2022, a change in policy was 

implemented and participants were allowed to take out a second general purpose loan. 

Participants may only borrow their employee contributions, up to $50,000, and the minimum 

loan amount is $1,000.

Participants may take a hardship withdrawal if they have a financial need as the result of a 

recurring negative cash flow, medical expenses, a personal casualty loss, or legal expenses 

associated with a divorce. Participants may only withdraw their employee contributions, and the 

minimum withdrawal amount is $1,000, with a 10% early withdrawal penalty if the participant is 

younger than 59 1⁄2.

Figure 9

Loan usage overall decreased 

slightly to 6.6%, however, with the 

change in policy to allow for a 

second general purpose loans, 

overall loan total is up year over 

year.

Hardship withdrawals have

decreased by 1.9 percentage points 

compared to 2021. With only 2.1% of 

participants taking hardship 

withdrawals, it is the lowest rate 

we’ve seen in the past five years.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

<= 29 30 - 39 40 - 49 50 - 59 60 - 69 70+

Active FERS 100% Allocation in One Fund by Age

100 % G Fund

100% F Fund

100% C Fund

100% S Fund

100% I Fund

100% In One L Fund

Other Allocations

8.5% 8.6%

7.1% 7.0% 6.6%

3.3% 3.7% 2.9%

4.0%

2.1%

0.0%

2.0%

4.0%

6.0%

8.0%

10.0%

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

FERS Loan and Hardship 

Withdrawal Usage

Loans Usage* Hardship Withdrawals

*Includes CARES 
12

As seen in Figure 10, loan usage increased among all age groups except for participants older 

than 60. Usage remains the highest among the 40-49 age cohort, with 9.6% of the participants 

in this cohort having an active loan at the end of 2022. Usage among participants aged 30-39

was higher than those aged 50-59, 8.3% and 8% respectively; this was a flip from 2021 but 

similar to 2018 and 2019.

Figure 10

All age cohorts saw a decrease in hardship withdrawals year over year. In previous years 

hardship withdrawal usage was consistently highest among the 40-49 and 50-59 age cohorts but 

in 2022 the 30-39 and 40-49 cohorts are the most likely to have a hardship withdrawal with a 

usage rate of 3.1%. (See Figure 11.)

Figure 11

Hardship withdrawal usage continues its stair-step pattern among the salary quintiles, with 

usage generally declining as salary levels increase. (See Figure 12) In previous years there was 

an exception in this pattern for the lowest paid, but usage increased by 0.4% while the second 

lowest salary quintile decreased usage by 1.7%. We can note that hardship withdrawal usage 

(5.7%) for the lowest paid participants is lower than their loan usage (11.4%). 

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

2018 2019 2020* 2021 2022

Percent with Loan

FERS Loan Usage by Age

<= 29

30 - 39

40 - 49

50 - 59

60 - 69

70+

*Includes CARES Loans

0.0%

1.0%

2.0%

3.0%

4.0%

5.0%

6.0%

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

FERS Hardship Withdrawal Usage by Age

<= 29

30 - 39

40 - 49

50 - 59

60 - 69

70 +
13

Figure 12

Summary

An analysis of TSP participant data from 2018 to 2022 reveals that the TSP participant trends 

changed slightly. In 2022, more participants allocated funds to the G Fund, however, over 50% 

of participants are taking advantage of the Lifecycle Funds. Overall loan usage decreased 

which was driven by the older participants, as the younger cohorts had an increase in loan 

usage. Hardship withdrawals decreased across every cohort except for the lowest paid 

quintile. Overall participation rates continued to be high around 95% and deferral rates 

increased year over year. 

0%

1%

2%

3%

4%

5%

6%

7%

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

FERS Hardship Withdrawal Usage by Salary 

Quintile

Q1 Lowest Paid

Q2 Lower Paid

Q3 Mid Range

Q4 Higher Paid

Q5 Highest Paid