I worked in Payroll for 13 years for the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, so know the following. Around 1985, the government switched from CSRS (Civil Service Retirement System) to FERS (Federal Employees Retirement System). Under CSRS, If you work 40 or more years, I think you could retire at about 80% of your pay. After 40 years, retirement did not increase, but of course you continued to earn full income rather than retirement income. A lot of these employees have retired with some encouragement ("early out" options, buy outs). These CSRS employees will never receive Social Security income unless they worked enough quarters somewhere else to qualify. They also never put into the Social Security coffers unless through another job.
FERS retirees do not have it nearly as well. They DO put into the Social Security coffers, and have the same eligibility/benefits as anyone else contributing to the system. They also have a separate retirement account, into which they and the government contribute, which yields 1% of your income for each year you have worked. Of course, other requirements must be met, such as meeting time in service and age requirements. If you don't retire until you are 65, it goes up to 1.1%. So if you work 30 years, from age 35 to 65, your retirement will be 33% of your "high three" salary (the three consecutive years of federal service with the highest income). If you were to work 30 years from age 30 to 60, your retirement would be 30% of your "high three".
There are a couple of things which make federal service still a pretty good deal. There is a 401(k) system into which the government contributes 1% of your base pay, will match your contributions of 1% - 3% dollar for dollar, and match your contributions of 4% - 5% at 50 cents on the dollar. The employee may contribute more, up to the IRS limit for IRAs. One can then choose between a variety, or combination thereof, of places it is invested (stocks, bonds, international stocks, etc.) depending on the risk one wants to take. Of course, the really low paid employees have trouble contributing much to the 401(k). The other thing that federal employees get is to carry their health benefits into retirement (again, there are some qualifying conditions). Naturally, premiums are paid by the retiree just as they were when still an active employee.
CSRS employees may contribute to the 401(k) but get no "matching" dollars.
Federal employees generally make less than their "counterparts" on the "outside". This used to be worth it because of the job security and benefits. The benefits are still in place although the FERS retirement is lacking (the switch from CSRS was to bail out Social Security at that time - CSRS was doing well and actually making a profit). The job security is not nearly as good as it used to be. They are hiring more people on temporary or term appointment status, intermittent (labor pool) status, and using more contractors (when you work for a contractor, you are not a federal employee and only have the benefits offered by the contractor. You also have less job security).
Just like the private sector, more and more work is being piled onto employees. Administrative staff is horrifically understaffed as it is better to cut positions there than from nursing, etc., when the money is lessened. After all, patients really can't do without nurses or medicine, so those areas really can't be cut. Not to say that they haven't been cut some; the staff nurses where I worked had to do a lot and many contributed "free" hours of overtime off the record to catch up on their paperwork, etc.
When I was in Payroll the positions went from four to one (I was the one still standing). I was doing at least 2.5 jobs (some of the work had been passed elsewhere). In my last positions as an Administrative Officer to a large service, I had the responsibility of at least 2 full time positions. In fact, my supervisor became so hostile (it actually became a personal vendetta; long story) that I retired on disability due to psychiatric conditions. And if you're thinking "yeah, right", well think again. This is one of the hardest disabilities to prove as it is so subjective. It is hard to get a doctor to say you cannot work (after all, they could be called into court or whatever so they have to be careful what they put their name to). The employee's word is a small part of the application - medical doctors' opinions are what is weighed most heavily. As it is, I do not qualify for Social Security disability - to receive that, you must establish that you cannot work at all (which is not true for me). For the federal disability retirement, it had to be established that I could not work in my present job or any other positions equivalent to it.
It was not just me. Most people I knew in the workplace were very overburdened with work as attrition without backfilling the positions loaded more and more work onto people. Management didn't