Not being able to work a job on your career path freezes it in place, while your physical body continues to age at the same rate. Thus, there is even a case to

Not being able to work a job on your career path freezes it in place, while your physical body continues to age at the same rate. Thus, there is even a case to be made for > 100% compensation. If you don't choose to retire a year later, the year you sit out is costing you what you would have been making in the last year of your career. To explain in more detail, starting with the year you return to a career job, your pay may be reduced by a differential representing one year less experience, for every year until the end of your career. You miss out on the pay for the year you didn't work, plus all the raises between years, and the one raise you never got, because your career was one year shorter. All that adds up to the pay you would have otherwise received in the last year of your career.