单选题
When you leave a job with a traditional pension,
don't assume you've lost the chance to collect it. You're entitled to whatever
benefit you've earned — and you might even be entitled to take it now. "A lot of
people forget they have it, or they think that by waiting until they're 65,
they'll have a bigger benefit," says Wayne Bogosian, president of the PFE Group,
which provides corporate pre-retirement education. Your former
employers should send you a certificate that says how much your pension is
worth. If it's less than $5,000, or if the company offers a lump-sum payout, it
will generally close your account and cash you out. It may not seem like much,
but $5,000 invested over 20 years at eight percent interest is $23,000. If your
pension is worth more than $5,000, or your company doesn't offer the lump-sum
option, find out how much money you're eligible for at the plan's normal
retirement age, the earlier age at which you can collect the pension, the more
severe penalty for collecting it early. You'll probably still come out ahead by
taking the money now and investing it. What if you left a job
years ago, and you're realizing you may have unwittingly left behind a pension?
Get help from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. It has an online search
tool that has helped locate $47 million in lost benefits for more than 12,000
workers. If you have a traditional pension, retiring early
costs more than you might expect. Most people assume you take a proportional cut
for leaving before your plan's normal retirement age. For example, you might
think that if you need to accrue 30 years of service and you leave three years
early, you'd get a pension 90 percent of the full amount. But
that's not how- it works. Instead, you take an actuarial reduction, determined
by the employer but often around five percent a year, for each year you leave
early. So retiring three years early could leave you with only 85 percent of the
total amount. When you retire early with a defined-contribution
plan, the problem is you start spending investments on which you could be
earning interest. If you retire when you're 55, for example, and start using the
traditional pension then, by age 65 you'll have only about half of what you
would've had if you'd kept working until 65.
单选题
When one leaves a job with a traditional pension, ______.
A. he tends to forget that he has the pension
B. he has no right to ask for the pension
C. he'll have a bigger benefit than if he waits until the age of 65
D. he has a specified worth of pension
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】
单选题
If the retiree's pension is less than $5,000, it is wise of him to
______.
A. ask the company for a lump-sum payout
B. require his former boss to figure out the value of his pension
C. take the pension with him and make a profit out of it
D. collect the pension at his retirement plan's normal retirement
age
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】
单选题
If one leaves early before his plan's normal retirement age ______.
A. he'll take 90 percent of the total amount of his pension
B. he'll have half of his pension payments
C. he'll have his pension payment reduced by 5% a year
D. he'll have only 85 percent of his full pension
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】
单选题
If one retires early with a defined-contribution plan, he is expected
to ______.
A. earn less interest
B. be better off than with a traditional pension
C. start investment immediately
D. get less Social Security benefits
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】
单选题
Which of the following can be used as the subtitle for the last three
paragraphs?
A. Your Payout Is Not Guaranteed
B. The Retirement Dilemma
C. Leave Early, Lose Big
D. Take the Pension with You
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】
单选题
Which of the following is NOT true?
A. If one leaves 3 years early on a 30-year-service basis, he won't get a
pension worth 27/30ths.
B. It pays to get an early retirement if one understands how retirement
pension plan works.
C. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation helps the retiree to recover
lost benefits.
D. If one keeps his expenses within his retirement framework, he won't be
severely affected.