Benefits pension plan

Defined Benefit Pension Plans Pension plans that do not require a contribution from the employee are infrequently offered. However, a few companies, particularly larger employers in high-profit-margin industries, offer defined benefit pension plans where the employee is guaranteed to receive a set pension benefit upon retirement. The amount of the benefit is determined by the years of service with the... 

SALARIES/BENEFITS Pension Plan ESOP Stock Plan Profit Sharing Top Exec. Salary Bonus ... 

SALARIES/BENEFITS Pension Plan ESOP Stock Plan Savings Plan Stock Purch. Plan Profit Sharing Top Exec. Salary 360,000 Second Exec. Salary 150,000 Bonus 197,292 Bonus 27,000... 

Lubrizol offers its employees benefits including tuition reimbursement life, business travel accident and long-term disability insurance a 401 (k) plan a defined benefit pension plan and medical, dental and prescription drug coverage. 

Defined-benefit pension plans. If, in retirement, you receive from your former employer a fixed monthly payment, your pension exemplifies the defined-benefit type. The structure of such a plan makes your employer legally responsible for implementing all of it. It requires the company but not the employee to make a minimum annual contribution, which comes from investments. The employer must make up any investment losses to maintain its annual contribution. It may not end the plan without sufficient assets to provide the promised benefits, and its obligation to continue payments to employees survives bankruptcy. The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, which is wholly owned by the U.S. government, secures payments to employees who participate in defined-benefit schemes. Consequently, participants can never exhaust their benefits while they live, and their spouses may continue to receive pension payments after the participants die. Regular lifetime payments are important features of defined-benefit pension plans, about two-thirds of which disallow lump-sum distributions at retirement (Kehrer, 1995). 

PARTICIPATION, VESTING, ELIGIBILITY, AND SERVICE. Three significant dates and an interval figure in defined-benefit pension plans. 

ACCRUAL OF BENEFITS. Entitlements accrue slowly in defined-benefit pension plans, with most of them coming late in an employee s working lifetime. A representative plot of pension entitlements versus age appears in Figure 8-5. Such a rate tends to keep vested participants working for a single employer for a long time, although the steep rise in pension credits does make early retirements possible. 

Figure 8-5 Present value of a typical defIned-benefIt pension plan (Source I. G. Kastrinsky, Employee Benefits Journal,...

A more prophylactic protection against the economic dislocation of a layoff is the pension and retirement fund. The exact nature of the rights and benefits offered by a private pension plan, of course, depends upon the particular provisions of that plan, and great variety exists. Some states regard a retirement plan as wages withheld in order to induce continued faithful service on the employee s part therefore, the state inter-... 

Perhaps more important than state law, however, in determining one s legal rights under a pension plan is ERISA—the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA, by altering the requirements which employee retirement benefit plans must meet in order for an employers contributions to qualify for tax deductibility, has standardized private pension plans in ways most favorable to covered employees. Tax savings and protections are also available under either a qualified group retirement plan or an H.R. 10, Keogh, or I.R.A. plan wherein an individual may set up a tax-deferred retirement fund for himself. 

Employee benefit packages for firefighters also vary from department to department, but they tend to be substantial. Common benefits include medical, disability, and life insurance sick leave, vacation, and holiday pay educational incentives and a generous pension plan. Departments also supply the uniforms and personal equipment that firefighters use on the job. 

The Social Security Administration sends an annual statement of earnings history and benefits estimate to every wage earner. You may also phone (800) SSA-1213 or visit the Social Security web site (www.ssa.gov) to request a customized benefits estimate. Also, your employer s pension plan administrator will provide an estimate of your pension benefits. 

NOTE Generally, employees covered by wealthbuilding benefit plans do not fully own ( vest in ) funds contributed on their behalf by the employer until as many as five years of service with that employer have passed. All pension plans are voluntary—that is, employers are not obligated to offer pensions. 

Pension Plan The firm offers a pension plan to qualified employees. In this case, in order for a Y to appear, the editors believe that the employer offers a defined benefit or cash balance pension plan (see discussions below).The type and generosity of these plans vary widely from firm to firm. Caution Some employers refer to plans as pension or retirement plans when they are actually 401(k) savings plans that require a contribution by the employee. 

The company offers employees medical, dental and vision insurance life insurance long-term disability group legal plan cancer protector insurance accident insurance an employee assistance program a pension plan a 401 (k) plan discounted home and auto insurance credit union and relocation benefits. 

Employee benefits include medical, dental, and vision benefits 401 (k) with company match employee assistance program retirement pension plan and educational reimbursements. 

CertainTeed offers its employees a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental and life insurance short and long term disability coverage flexible spending accounts a pension plan a 401 (k) and product discounts. 

JMM s benefits package includes medical, dental, life and short- and long-term disability insurance tuition reimbursement a pension plan and a 401(k) matching savings plan. 

Pactiv offers its employees benefits that include a 401 (k) plan a pension plan educational assistance flexible spending accounts health, vision, AD D and life insurance and disability benefits. 

Employee-benefit insurance, including life, hospitalization, accident, health, personal property, and pension plans. 

The government is the number one employer in our country. Government jobs are secure, have great holiday and vacation schedules, offer health insurance, and provide paid training for employees. Benefits include 10 paid holidays a year, 13 to 26 paid vacation days a year, 13 sick days a year, group life insurance, medical and dental benefits, and a government pension plan. 

Fringe benefits (FB) Contractual adders to the base labor rate medical and pension plans, vacation, travel pay, holidays, etc. 

In some pension plans several employers contribute to a single fund, usually to cover unionized workers. These plans are not relevant to North American chemists, who have no union. The pertinent and also commonplace arrangement calls only for a single company to contribute to one pension fund, which may include a defined-benefit or defiried-ccmtrihutian scheme. Some corporate pension plans include elements of both these schemes, so it s vital to understand them and the differences between them. 

An employee who invests her lump-sum distribution when she retires receives the rewards and bears the risks of investment. Making appropriate investments allows her to increase her capital faster than inflation shrinks it. As we saw, other deflned-benefit pensions make none but ad hoc adjustments for inflation, and retired employees do not choose the investments that underlie their pensions. With these annuity-based, guaranteed plans in which employers determine investments, retired persons cannot outlive their benefits. However, exhausting or losing one s capital is possible in cash-balance plans, after the lump-sum payment is received at retirement. 

Bumlingame, H. W., and Grdotta, M. J. Cash balance pension plan facilitates restructuring the workforce at AT T, Compensation Benefits Review, November/December, 25-31 (1998). 

Cole, G. E. An explanation of pension plans, Employee Benefits Journal, June, 3-13 (1999). 

Company sponsored pension plans, as mentioned before, are a dying breed these days. Should your employer still offer one, consider it a very major benefit and cross your fingers that it lasts. A 401k plan is far more likely to be offered. Here the employee contributes a percentage of his/her salary, some of which may or may not be matched by the employer (find out ), and the whole amount is invested in a special retirement fund. Some very small companies may not offer even this. 

What America lacked in banking critical mass it more than made up for in the pension fund area. The US pension system is funded. That is, there are assets to meet the needs of retirees and to pay the future benefits of those still working. This is not to say that the funding is always adequate. Pension plan shortfalls frequently arise, especially during periods of market decline. But there are still huge amounts of cash to be invested in the equity and bond markets, as well as in alternative areas such as real estate. 

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