The official place to get pension plan answers about the UPS Pension Plan is from the Plan Document, which should be available from the Plan Administrator. The Summary Plan Description (SPD) is a plain-English version of the Plan Document and should have been sent to each covered participant. Be sure to see if a Summary Of Material Modifications is also available. That will contain any recent plan admendments.
It appears (if I'm reading the Form-5500 right) that there are two types of pensions: A REGULAR PENSION and a SERVICE PENSION. The Service Pension is the one you get after passing the 25 or 30 or 35 year milestones at any age. There is no additional amount for the inbetween years.
The Regular Pension is payable at NORMAL RETIREMENT AGE, which is 65. This pension is $55 times every year of pension credit you earned up through 2007. Plus $60 times every pension credit year you earned in 2008 and thereafter. If you want this pension earlier than age 65, your earned amount is reduced by 6% per year.
You have to be age 21 to join the Plan, and 35 years of pension credit is the maximum you can accrue, so a 35 year career would put you at age 56 or so. If you wanted to retire, at 56 or 57 or so, you would take quite a hit from the 6% Early Retirement Reduction for each of the years before age 65. As a practical matter the Service Pension milestones would give you a higher benefit, because you get which ever gives you the highest benefit.
Various UPS policies make it very difficult to collect a pension from this plan. Only 3,002 retired UPSers were actually collecting a monthly pension check from this Plan in 2009. That's pitiful.
The 2009 Form-5500 of the UPS PENSION PLAN is available at the Dept. of Labor website. . .
http://www.efast.dol.gov/portal/app/disseminate?execution=e1s1
Schedule SB gives a summary of the Plan Features.
Just enter
United Parcel Service in the
Sponsor Name field and click
Search.
From the list of UPS plans, check the box next to the UPS PENSION PLAN
Click the
Batch Full Filings button to download the entire Annual Report.
(IF Internet Explorer blocks you, as it does me, you have to override and repeat your request.)
Have a destination folder ready to download to..