Chris 99:

You need 11 "Good Years." Any service should work the same, because as Blastoff said, it is all Federal pay-scale.

Good years:

You would need to earn at least 50 points a year. You get 15 for being alive, BUT, they don't count for retirement pay!! Depending upon your duty status, you usually get 1 pt per pay-period. However, pay periods can be 4 hours (TPs or UTA), or 8 hours (Annual Training (AT), or Man-Power Authorizations (MPA).

TPs don't always earn points, though. You only get 24 from TPs a year. Any other TPs you get paid for the day, but it doesn't build retirement points.

Assuming you retire as a Capt / O-3, each 50-pt year will increase your monthly retirement check by about $15.00. This is a guess only, but I would say O-3 retirement pay (in today's dollars) is about $900-1000/mo.

So yes, you WOULD need to "work" to get those additional points to make it a Good Year.

Bear in mind that you don't get any money from retirement until you turn 60. There are continuing attempts to reduce this based upon length of service, or number of deployments to crap-holes. So far, all shot down because it costs too much.

But at least Congress voted themselves a raise.

This discussion is about guys who are drilling and getting paid. I'm not certain how it works in the IRR--I think you work on a volunteer basis for points-only.