Thousands of federal employees have stopped making contributions to their Thrift Savings Plan retirement accounts as the economy continues to slide.

The board governing the Thrift Savings Plan said this morning that 84.4 percent of employees covered by the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) contributed their own money to the plan in November. That's down from 85 percent in October, and translates to 9,000 fewer FERS employees contributing their own money to TSP.

That is the lowest FERS participation rate since September 1997. It's also the steepest one-month drop since June, when the participation rate dropped 0.7 percentage points to 85.3 percent.

All FERS employees who enroll in TSP automatically get a contribution from their agencies equal to 1 percent of their basic pay, whether they contribute to their own accounts or not.

The collapse of the stock market has pummeled the TSP's stock-based C, S and I funds. The C Fund, which tracks the Standard & Poor's index, was down 37.6 percent for the year, as of the end of November. The S Fund, pegged to the stocks of small- and medium-sized companies, had dropped 41 percent. And the I Fund's international stocks were down 46.5 percent.

TSP participants in November also continued to move money into the government securities-backed G Fund and out of all other funds. The G Fund, which yields small returns but does not decline in value, is seen by many as a good place to shelter money during economic turmoil.

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