Retirement may not be the best option, especially if you’re still relatively young (late fifties, early-to-mid sixties). I wouldn’t assume that the value of your retirement as it presently stands will remain the same. Better to continue working and saving. At sixty, you might well last another thirty to thirty-five years.
Good point. Of course, if you can get a full retirement package at, say, age 55, and then get a good full-time private sector job, that’s probably the best of both worlds.
Many government pension systems are the result of a corrupt deal between elected officials and government employees. The politicians obtain political support in exchange for the promise of lavish but unfunded benefits. The future taxpayers who have to pay those benefits are not party to the deal, are not morally bound by it, and should not be legally bound to it either. So, if I were a government employee, I wouldn’t be thinking of my retirement as 100% fixed or guaranteed.