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Jesse Jackson, Jr., son of well known civil rights activist and Baptist minister Jesse Jackson, represented Illinois's 2nd congressional district (which includes parts of Chicago) in the U.S. House of Representatives for seventeen years until his congressional tenure came to a somewhat ignominious end in the latter half of 2012. He seemingly disappeared from Congress and the public eye on 10 June 2012 while his office issued confusingly brief statements regarding his whereabouts, finally announcing several weeks later that he was undergoing evaluation at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for depression and for gastrointestinal issues. A few weeks after that announcement, the Mayo Clinic released a statement asserting that Jackson was being treated for bipolar disorder and responding well to treatment. In October 2013, news accounts revealed that federal investigators were looking into suspicious activity in Jackson's finances (including possible misuse of campaign funds) and that the federal probe had begun prior to Jackson's hospitalization, which led to speculation that Jackson's sudden hospitalization was a manufactured ploy to keep him out of the clutch of the feds for the time being. On 21 November 2012, sixteen days after being re-elected to another term, Jackson resigned his House seat, stating that his health issues and treatment regimen have become incompatible with service in the House of Representatives and acknowledging that he was aware of the ongoing federal investigation into my activities. On 15 February 2013, federal prosecutors in Washington filed charges against Jackson over his improper spending of $750,000 in campaign funds on thousands of personal purchases: A few days later Jackson pleaded guilty to one count of wire and mail fraud and in August 2013 was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, a sentence which he began serving at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, North Carolina, in October 2013. About the time Jackson was sentenced, an item circulated online claimed that Jackson was receiving $8,700 per month in disability payments as well as a $45,000 per year in Congressional pension payments: The message outraged many readers with its message that a civil servant who had abused the public trust, resigned his position, and plead guilty to crimes related to his political office would be collecting far more in government benefits while in prison than the average American taxpayer earns. However, it's far from clear that Jackson has been, or will be, collecting the sums referenced in such messages. The genesis of this rumor appeared to be a June 2013 Chicago Tribune article which noted that, while Jackson was awaiting sentencing, his defense lawyers had stated in a court filing that Jackson had no income other than Social Security payments and Federal Employee Retirement System payments. Noting that Jackson was too young to be collecting a Congressional pension, the Tribune wondered about the nature of the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) payments that Jackson was reportedly receiving. They speculated that Jackson was apparently eligible for a FERS program that pays disability retirement payments, and under that program, Jackson would be eligible to collect 60% of his previous salary (minus any Social security benefits) for 12 months, and 40% of his previous salary afterwards. Since the standard salary for members of Congress at the time Jackson resigned his House seat was $174,000 per year, he could theoretically collect 60% of that amount ($104,400, or $8,700 per month) for up a year. It's uncertain whether Jackson actually applied for, was approved for, and/or has collected any such disability retirement payments, though. As the Tribune found, privacy laws preclude government officials from disclosing that information, and it's possible that reform measures passed by Congress in recent years might prevent him from receiving FERS disability retirement payments: The question of how much money Jackson might someday garner from his Congressional pension (he isn't eligible to collect anything until 2021, when he turns 56) depends upon a number of factors. In general, according to an August 2013 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on Retirement Benefits for Members of Congress, the accrual rate for pension benefits under FERS is 1.7% for the first 20 years and 1.0% for each year beyond the 20th. Since Jackson served in Congress for 17 years, the formula for his basic retirement annuity would be: [Previous salary * .017 * years of service] = [$174,000 * .017 * 17] = $50,286 Again, however, whether Jackson will ever receive this amount is speculative. He won't be eligible to collect on his Congressional pension until several years from now, and so a decision about whether or not reform laws in place will strip him of some or all of it likely won't be made until then: This item may be a heads-up about potential pitfalls of the Federal Employees Retirement System, but whether the scenario it describes did (or will) play out in reality is indeterminate so far.
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