The New York State Teachers’ Retirement System covers public school teachers and administrators across New York outside New York City, which has its own system. Your tier is set by the date you joined, and it decides both the pension factor and the age when the reduction for early retirement stops.
The formula
NYSTRS figures your maximum yearly pension as your pension factor times an age factor (when one applies) times your final average salary. The result is the single-life amount. Choosing an option that protects a beneficiary lowers it.
Tier 6 (joined April 1, 2012 or later)
The Tier 6 pension factor works in three bands:
- With fewer than 20 years of service, you earn 1.67% for each year.
- With exactly 20 years, you earn 1.75% for every year, which is 35%.
- With more than 20 years, you earn 35% plus 2% for each year beyond 20.
So 25 years gives 45% and 30 years gives 55%. On a $95,000 final average salary, 30 years pays $52,250 a year, or about $4,354 a month.
Tier 6 members can retire from 55 once vested. There is no age reduction if you retire at 63 or later, or at 58 or later with at least 30 years of service. Before those points NYSTRS applies its Tier 6 age-reduction factor, which cuts the benefit significantly, so many members aim for one of the two unreduced dates. Your annual Benefit Profile shows the reduced figure at different ages.
Tier 4 (joined Sept 1983 to Dec 2009)
Tier 4 members earn 1⅔% a year with fewer than 20 years, or 2% a year with 20 to 30 years. Each year past 30 adds 1.5%. There is no age reduction at 62 or later, or at 55 or later with 30 years of service. A Tier 4 teacher retiring at 58 with 32 years gets 60% + 3% = 63% of final average salary.
| Years of service | Tier 4 | Tier 6 |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | 25.0% | 25.1% |
| 20 | 40.0% | 35.0% |
| 25 | 50.0% | 45.0% |
| 30 | 60.0% | 55.0% |
| 35 | 67.5% | 65.0% |
Final average salary
For Tiers 2 through 6, final average salary is generally the average of your highest three consecutive school years of pay, wherever they fall in your career. Tier 6 has limits on what counts: pay that rises sharply in the final years, overtime above a cap, and some lump-sum payments are excluded.
Vesting and contributions
Tier 6 members vest after five years of New York State service credit. Tier 6 contributions run from 3% to 6% of pay depending on salary, and they continue for your whole career. Tier 4 members generally stop contributing after 10 years of membership or service.
Social Security
NYSTRS teachers pay into Social Security, so most retire with both a pension and a full Social Security benefit. Because the age-63 unreduced date for Tier 6 arrives before full Social Security age, many teachers retire from teaching at 63 and wait a few years to claim Social Security, which raises it permanently. The pension and Social Security calculator shows that trade.