(Bloomberg Business) — If you're in the market for a new job, take note: Not all company retirement plans are created equal. If you're not careful, you can easily go from a gig with a generous 401(k) program or a traditional pension to one with no retirement plan at all.
This Bloomberg data visualization lets you plug in details of your own retirement plan to see how it ranks against plans at the largest companies in the S&P 500-stock index. The information might help you get a better retirement plan from your current employer or might be good to know if you're applying for a job at one of these big companies.
But if you're considering a new job elsewhere, your time to ask a potential employer about its retirement plan might be brief. To get the answers you need to make an informed decision, here are four questions that financial advisers suggest you ask about a company's retirement program, ranked in order of importance. Is there a retirement plan at all?
This one may seem obvious, but about half of American private-sector workers don't have a retirement plan. Larger companies usually offer a 401(k) plan, though some still offer a defined-benefit pension. Small businesses may have simpler individual retirement accounts, such as SEP-IRAs and Simple IRAs. "Any plan is better than no plan," says Denver-based financial planner Kristi Sullivan.How much does the company kick in?
Ask how the company matches 401(k) contributions. The highest-rated employer on the Bloomberg 401(k) ranking is ConocoPhillips. For the first 1 percent of salary that employees contribute to their 401(k), the company contributes 9 percent to the plan. It also adds an additional 6 percent to 9 percent as profit sharing.
