If you are or have been a biweekly paid employee, you can estimate your pension benefit from the Employees' Retirement Plan based on various retirement dates or ages. You may also use this site to review retirement planning resources, summary plan descriptions and retiree health information, including the Duke Retirement Planning Guide. There is a link to the Social Security website, and you may also review your personal information such as your date of hire, home address, and last 10 fiscal years of salary. This information is updated after every pay period.
**This is the same tool the Benefits Department uses when calculating the ERP benefit**
This tool will provide results based on the data you are entering, such as last date worked (date of termination), date of benefit commencement (when you want to begin your ERP payment), whether or not you are including a beneficiary and the age of the beneficiary.
If you run several estimates with different dates and different beneficiaries or no beneficiary, the results will vary based on the data entered.
Payment Options
There are several payment options available for receiving your benefit.
- A single life annuity is a monthly payment amount you will receive every month for the rest of your lifetime. All payments stop at your death. There is no beneficiary under this payment option.
- The Joint and Survivor payment option is designed so that you will receive a payment amount every month for the rest of your life, and at your death your beneficiary would then begin to receive either 50%, 75%, or 100% of what you were receiving. If you choose a beneficiary that is much younger than you, such as a child, there is a larger age gap between you and your beneficiary that may significantly impact the benefit amount you receive. Also, if your beneficiary passes away before you, your benefit will continue every month for the rest of your lifetime only.
- The level income option at age 62 or 65 is designed so that you receive a higher amount every month until age 62 or age 65, depending on which option you choose. This payment option might appeal to those who are retiring early and may not be starting Social Security, or would like to have the higher payment amount each month prior to turning age 62 or 65. There is no beneficiary under this payment option.
- A lump sum payment may be available if the total lump sum value is $10,000 or less. An example in this scenario might be someone who worked bi-weekly for a very short period of time, and then transferred to a monthly position at Duke or worked at Duke long enough to be vested, but did not have much service beyond that point.