When calculating your retirement income needs, figure out what you’ll need as a percentage of your take-home pay.
Your retirement income won't include deductions such as pension contributions, federation dues, employment insurance contributions and long-term disability premiums. And tax deductions are usually less in retirement to reflect your lower income.
Consider consulting a financial advisor to help you determine your retirement needs.
Estimate your pension
You can get a rough idea of your Ontario Teachers’ pension as a percentage of your pay by multiplying your years of credit in the plan by two.
So if you retire with 29 years of credit, your pension will provide roughly 58% of your average best five years’ salary at retirement. Keep in mind this is very much a rough estimate that doesn’t consider reductions or adjustments for survivor benefits, early retirement, your bridge benefit or inflation adjustments.
Use the pension calculator in your account to get a better idea of how much you'll receive and when. Check out this quick video (1 min., 17 sec.) for tips on using our most popular retirement planning tool.
The pension calculator will also show the impact on your pension if you pay for any eligible leaves.
Estimate CPP and OAS pensions
Most teachers qualify for income from government sources.
We provide a bridge benefit over and above your lifetime pension amount until you reach age 65, when you're eligible for an unreduced Canada Pension Plan (CPP) pension (or earlier if you start to receive a CPP disability pension).
Old Age Security (OAS) doesn't impact your Ontario Teachers’ pension.
To calculate the value of your CPP and OAS benefits, use the Government of Canada’s Canadian Retirement Income Calculator.