What Is the Retirement Income Gap?
Your pension and Social Security are real, guaranteed income. For many people, they still don't fully replace a working paycheck — and the space in between has a name.
💬 GLP Retirement MinuteThe Concept, Visually
Illustrative only — the actual split varies dramatically person to person. Don't treat these proportions as your number.
You may see figures like "expect a 30–50% drop in income" thrown around as if it's a universal MPSERS fact. It isn't. Your plan type, years of service, FAC, whether you have a DC account, and your Social Security record all change this dramatically. Treat any generic percentage as a starting conversation, not your answer.
A few structural reasons show up again and again: many MPSERS pensions don't include automatic cost-of-living increases, healthcare costs often rise faster than income in retirement, and — critically — anyone with a DC or hybrid plan has a savings component whose size depends entirely on how much was actually saved and invested, not a guaranteed formula.
Combine your pension estimate, your Social Security estimate from ssa.gov, and a realistic sense of your retirement expenses. The difference between "income you'll have" and "income you'll need" is your real, personal gap — not a percentage from an article.
The gap is a legitimate planning concept, not a scare tactic — and not everyone has one, or the same size one. Understanding whether you have a gap, and how large, is the entire reason the next step exists.