Presumably you are also vested in a pension, but even a couple without any additional pension could live on the proceeds of a 1m financial portfolio, (maybe drawing at a full 4% instead of your very-safe 3%) especially if they were willing to relocate (inland?) to less expensive US-based digs.
ESRBob,
You are right. I am very fortunate to be covered by the old Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) rather than the newer Federal Retirement System (FRS). I was able to retire at age 55 with 56% of my average high three salary years (indexed to the CPI). That pretty much will cover all of our regular expenses. Any withdrawals from our nestegg will be for the "extras". We will continue to be conservative in our withdrawals as it is our intention to fully fund 529 plans to cover the cost of college education for our grandchildren (when we have them).
Clearly my employment situation with Uncle Sam made all of this alot easier to accomplish. However, many of my peers at NASA, with the same opportunities, failed to take advantage of them. They will be working well into their late 60's and may never have the financial security they could have had.
Grumpy