Employers who supply differential pay, must provide it to an employee if he or she earns less in the military than they would earn in his or her position. Differential pay is the difference between the employee’s military earnings and employment earnings.

The following table shows an example of how to calculate differential pay:

 

WRS Employer Earnings Subtract Military Service Earnings Differential Pay Total
$40,000 - $30,000 = $10,000

 

Retirement contributions come out of differential pay according to Federal law. The employer submits WRS employee-required contributions to ETF based on annual earnings of only the differential pay amount.

Using the differential pay example above, the following table shows how to calculate employee-required contributions from the employee’s differential pay:

 

Differential Pay Multiplied by the 2019 Employee-Required Contribution Rate (6.55%) Employee-Required Contributions
$10,000 x .0655 = $655

 

For More Information:

Full instructions and guidelines can be found in the USERRA Certification (ET-4560) and USERRA Checklist (ET-2573).

Employer Training on USERRA protocols including webinars and related material can be found on the ETF employer training page.

Please refer to chapter 22 of the Wisconsin Retirement System Administration Manual (ET-1127) or contact ETF’s employer Communication Center with questions at 1-877-533-5020.