He Spent 20 Winters Repairing a Great Lakes Shipping Lifeline. Social Security Counted Every Season; His Federal Pension Counted None.

Twenty Winters Can Still Add Up to Zero

Every winter, after the last freighter passes through the Soo Locks in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a different kind of season begins. The locks connect Lake Superior to the rest of the Great Lakes system, carrying iron ore, wheat, limestone and other cargo through one of the country’s critical industrial corridors. In early 2026, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shut them for roughly 10 weeks while crews worked through near-record snowfall to repair and inspect the aging infrastructure before shipping resumed March 25.

Now picture one worker returning for that winter work year after year under short federal appointments. Twenty seasons later, he can have a Social Security record showing every paycheck and a federal pension record showing virtually none of that service. The ice is not the reason. The paperwork is.

The Appointment Matters More Than the Seasons

Federal retirement rules distinguish between a permanent seasonal employee and someone repeatedly hired under temporary appointments. That difference can be enormous. Under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), federal service generally builds pension credit when the worker’s pay is subject to FERS retirement deductions.

But the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) says employees serving under appointments limited to one year or less are generally excluded from FERS coverage. And repeatedly coming back does not necessarily fix it. A series of appointments, each limited to a year or less, can remain excluded even when the same worker returns for many seasons. So 20 winters do not automatically become 20 years, or even several years, toward a federal annuity.

Meanwhile, if Social Security taxes were withheld from those wages, the earnings can still appear on his Social Security record. Same federal employer. Two retirement systems keeping very different score.

Social Security Did Not Throw the Winters Away

Those seasonal wages can matter because Social Security retirement benefits are based on a worker’s highest 35 years of indexed earnings. If he has fewer than 35 years, zeros fill the missing slots. If he has a longer record, a strong winter season can still replace a weaker year if the earnings are high enough.

That does not magically compensate for losing a federal pension accrual. But it means the work itself did not vanish from his retirement picture. For someone who bounced between seasonal federal jobs and private employment, those winters may ultimately matter much more to Social Security than he expected.

The Buyback Door May Be Shut

This is where the appointment papers become particularly important. Someone who later takes a permanent federal job should not assume the earlier temporary time can simply be purchased and added to a FERS pension. OPM says that, with limited exceptions, non-deduction federal service performed after 1988 cannot later be made creditable by paying a deposit.

Older service can follow different rules, and certain employment histories have exceptions. But for a worker whose 20 winters occurred in recent decades, “I’ll buy the time back later” may not be an option. That is much easier to discover in year two than in year 20.

Before Another Season Starts…

For federal workers who return season after season, these three checks can reveal which retirement system is actually getting credit:

• Pull each Standard Form 50 and look at the appointment type and retirement coverage, rather than assuming “federal employee” automatically means FERS.
• Check pay stubs for FERS retirement deductions and Social Security taxes. The deductions tell a much clearer story than the job title.
• Review the Social Security earnings record and make sure each season appears correctly, especially if the work was scattered across many short appointments.

The crews at the Soo Locks can spend an entire winter keeping the next shipping season on schedule. For the worker’s own retirement, the season that matters most may be the one when he finally checks what those winters have actually been building.

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