- What is a pension?
- Do I have to do anything to manage my pension?
- What if I leave my company before I retire?
- How does vesting work?
- When can I access my pension money?
- Can I take out a loan from my pension plan?
- Should I take a lump-sum payout or monthly payments?
- What are the advantages of taking a lump sum?
- Should I invest my lump-sum payout in an annuity?
- What's the difference between a single-life annuity and a joint-and-survivor annuity?
- Will I pay tax on my pension payouts?
- How should my pension affect my retirement planning?
- Will having a public-sector pension affect my Social Security?
There are two basic types of vesting (ask your benefits administrator which one applies to you):
Cliff vesting. This typically means that if you leave the job in five years or less, you lose all pension benefits. But if you leave after five years, you get 100% of your promised benefits.
Graded vesting. With this kind of vesting, at a minimum you're entitled to 20% of your benefit if you leave after three years. In each subsequent year, another 20% of your benefit vests. So if you stay for four years, you are vested in 40% of your benefit and so on; by the end of year seven, you are 100% vested in the plan, so you can leave the job knowing that you will get 100% of the pension benefits earned.
