Pay and Benefits | South Jersey Area Local 0526

2027 PSHB Rates: Compare Your Plan

The 2027 Postal Service Health Benefits rates are now official, and postal employees need to look closely at their current plan before Open Season. OPM reports that PSHB will offer 65 plan options from 17 carriers in 2027. Across the program, total premiums are increasing an average of 6.7 percent, while the average enrollee share will increase 8.2 percent. That is lower than 2026, when the average enrollee share increased 11.3 percent and overall PSHB premiums increased 9.0 percent, but it still means higher costs for many employees and retirees. U.S. Office of Personnel Management

The most important thing to understand is that 8.2 percent is only an average. Individual plans vary dramatically, as the accompanying infographic shows. APWU Consumer Driven Option increases are considerably smaller than the APWU High Option increases, while the MHBP Standard Option shows some of the largest dollar increases among the nationwide plans displayed. GEHA HDHP and Standard show no employee premium increase in the comparison, while NALC High Option actually decreases by $5.08 biweekly for Self Only and $3.31 for Self Plus One, with Self and Family increasing $2.95. The differences make it clear that members should not assume their current plan remains the best financial choice simply because they were satisfied with it in 2026.

The 2026 Federal Benefits Open Season runs November 9 through December 14, 2026. If you make no change, your existing PSHB enrollment generally continues into 2027, but OPM is encouraging enrollees to compare their options. Look beyond the premium alone. Review deductibles, copays, coinsurance, provider networks, prescription coverage, and maximum out-of-pocket costs before making a decision. In some PSHB plans, Self Plus One can even cost more than Self and Family, so compare every enrollment category available to you. U.S. Office of Personnel Management

Do not wait until the first 2027 paycheck to find out what your health coverage is costing you. Review the rates, study your plan, compare your options, and make an informed decision during Open Season.

More On Retroactive Pay

More information on the retroactive pay from Charlie Cash

Retroactive payments owed to the APWU represented employees under the main agreement were made and will show on the April 10, 2026, paychecks. Employees not covered by the main agreement (Nurses, HRSSC, IT/AS, or any Private Sector APWU contract) are not entitled to this payment. You Employees can tell if they are entitled to the payment by looking on their paystub at the column labeled as “RSC” (Rate Schedule Code). If the letter in that column is a P, C, or K, the employee is entitled to a retroactive payment for the hours listed for that RSC.

I have already received many questions about retroactive payments or been told employees did not receive their retroactive payments. Couple things to remember:

This is a relatively short retroactive period of 20 pay periods. It includes one 1.3% pay increase (additional 1% for PSEs) and one COLA for career employees that equates to $0.19 (19 cents) per hour. The COLA only covers 12 pay periods.

Employees should not be comparing their retroactive pay to previous contracts, other union contracts, or even other employees’ payments. Each person’s payment is unique and based on their previously paid hours worked or paid leave.

Some employees will not receive retroactive payments for some, or all of the hours worked or paid. These include employees who were detailed to 204-b positions. As these are EAS details, those employees were paid under the EAS pay scale and not entitled to backpay. An employee who is/was being paid by OWCP would also not receive a payment from the Postal Service. Again, the RSC column on the paystub will detail what pay schedule an employee is for any particle number of hours each week of each pay period.

Employees should review the full long form paystub available on LiteBlue to determine if they received the retroactive pay and to see the details of the payments. I have attached an explanation and an example paystub of an active employee to illustrate how the retroactive payments appear on the paystub. The short form that some receive in the mail or if people look at a pay stub on their smartphones will not provide enough detail to make proper determinations.

Employees who question whether they received the retroactive pay or if it is incorrect must download the full paystub and go over it with their state or local officer/steward. If after this review a question remains, a national, state, or local officer can send the paystub to my office for review. I request that members or non-members do not email us directly. The initial questions must go through the state or local with jurisdiction so we are not inundated with questions that could have been answered by using the explanation and example to review the pay stub at the state or local level.

National, State, or Local Officers who have questions must email the employee’s name, EIN, full paystub, and the specific question being asked to Lee Branca at Lbranca@apwu.org for review and consultation.

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Message from Charlie Cash

The retroactive pay will be on paychecks this Friday. As with the last two retroactive payments made, I am already receiving calls that employees did not receive their retroactive payments or that it was not as much as it should have been. I am in the process of basically redoing the write up that we did for the last retroactive payments from the 2021-2024 national agreement. I hope to have that out either late today or early tomorrow.

Employees will not see the retroactive adjustments on the pay stub that they look at on their mobile phones or the small stub they may receive in the mail. They will need to download the full stub (which could be many pages long, the last stubs from the 2021-2024 retroactive payments were up to 20 pages long). There they will see each pay period adjustment. People also need to be reminded that the payments will have taxes withheld, TSP withheld, retirement withheld, etc.

Couple things to remember:

No one person’s retroactive pay will be identical to another. Retroactive pay is only made on paid work hours or paid leave that was used during the retroactive period.
If an employee was detailed to another pay scale (the most common is they were on a non-bargaining unit detail as a 204-b or such) they are not paid any retroactive payments for that.
Any employee who received payments from OWCP will not see retroactive payments from the Postal Service. Only hours paid by the postal service on the APWU pay schedule will be due retro active payments.

If people have doubts about their retroactive payments, they need to download and provide the full pay stub to their local leaders. If their local leaders have questions, they need to send the full pay stub to Lee Branca who will review them. If an issue is found, my department will address.