Retiring with both a pension and Social Security raises its own set of questions: how the Social Security benefit is figured, what a spouse or survivor can receive, and whether a pension changes any of it. Here is what FedEx employees should know going into that decision.

How are Social Security benefits calculated?

Social Security looks at up to 35 years of a worker's highest earnings, adjusts each year for wage growth, and averages them into a figure called the average indexed monthly earnings. A formula then converts that average into the primary insurance amount, the base benefit before any adjustment for the age benefits start.

Full retirement age is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later. Starting benefits at 62, the earliest allowed age, permanently reduces the monthly amount by about 30% compared with waiting until full retirement age.

Waiting past full retirement age instead, up to age 70, increases the benefit by 8% for each full year of delay, for anyone born in 1943 or later; a benefit also keeps receiving its annual cost-of-living adjustment once it starts, and claiming does not have to happen on the same date retirement does.

What can a spouse, former spouse, widow or widower receive?

A spouse with fewer than 40 credits, or whose own benefit is smaller, can receive up to half of the other spouse's benefit amount at the other spouse's full retirement age, with a reduced amount available as early as 62; the marriage generally needs to have lasted at least a year before spousal benefits can start.

A divorced spouse can qualify on a former spouse's record if the marriage lasted at least 10 years before the divorce became final, the divorced spouse is 62 or older and currently unmarried, and their own benefit is not larger. This benefit does not reduce what the former spouse or the former spouse's current spouse receives, and two marriages to the same person within a 10-year span can sometimes be counted as one if the remarriage happened by the calendar year after the divorce.

If a spouse has died, a surviving spouse's benefit starts at about 71.5% of the worker's benefit at age 60 and rises the longer the survivor waits, reaching 100% at the survivor's own full retirement age for survivor benefits.

Does a pension affect Social Security?

Two Social Security rules used to cut benefits for a worker who also received a pension from work not covered by Social Security taxes: one known as WEP reduced the worker's own benefit, and one called the Government Pension Offset reduced a spousal or survivor benefit. The Social Security Fairness Act, signed January 5, 2025, repealed both rules for benefits payable after December 2023, and SSA has been sending retroactive payments to affected beneficiaries since February 2025 covering the increase back to January 2024.

A pension from noncovered work no longer reduces a Social Security benefit under either rule. Someone applying for Social Security for the first time, who was not already receiving it before the repeal, still follows the normal retroactivity rules: generally up to six months before the filing date, not an automatic restoration to January 2024.

Does a pension count as earned income for Social Security?

Pension payments are not counted as earned income by Social Security. When figuring how much to deduct from benefits under the retirement earnings test, which only applies before full retirement age, Social Security counts only wages from a job or net profit from self-employment; pension payments, annuities and investment income are left out, so a pension on its own does not reduce a benefit under that test or add to a worker's earnings record.

Where can you look up your own Social Security numbers?

A personal my Social Security account lets a user review their earnings history for accuracy, pull up their Social Security Statement, and use planning tools that estimate the benefit payable at different starting ages.

How those rules line up with a pension, in terms of timing, survivor options and overall income, is the next piece worth working through with FedEx's own plan details.

When can FedEx employees start their pension, and how is it paid?

FedEx's own pension rules set the ages and payout choices that shape how that timing actually works out. A vested FedEx employee can elect early retirement once they turn 55, though starting the plan's Traditional Pension Benefit right away instead of waiting for normal retirement, age 60 for most of the plan's Corporate Plan group, reduces the monthly amount by 3% for every year of that gap. That pension has been closed to non-pilot employees hired or rehired on or after January 1, 2020, and non-pilot participants who moved to the higher-matching 401(k) option had their pension accruals stop at the end of 2021. Payout choices differ by formula too: the Portable Pension Account can be taken as a lump sum or an annuity, while the older Traditional Pension Benefit pays only as an annuity, unless the combined benefit is small enough, under $5,000, to be cashed out automatically.

What changed for FedEx Freight retirement benefits in 2026?

FedEx completed the spin-off of its FedEx Freight less-than-truckload business into a new, separately traded company, FedEx Freight Holding, on June 1, 2026. FedEx's own fiscal 2026 filings describe that separation as moving an immaterial amount of net retirement-plan liabilities, including part of the defined benefit pension plans, over to FedEx Freight Holding, without detailing how any individual Freight retiree's own pension benefit is handled afterward.