How to find out which pension funds may be in trouble? One way is to wait until April, when — for the first time — the new law will require all companies that may have to curtail benefits to notify the affected workers in writing. The Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit consumer group in Washington, can explain the workings of the new law.Employees who want more information before April may find it helpful to experiment with one of the online tools that make detailed pension information readily available. They won’t give a crisp answer at the click of a mouse, but they can give some sense of which way a pension plan has been heading in the last few years.
One such database comes from AtPrime Media, which offers a Web site with tax, pension and other information geared toward people over the age of 50 (www.AtPrime.com). The database is free but requires registration.
Called the Pension Inspector, the database contains extensive information on hundreds of thousands of pension and other retirement plans in the private sector, culled from annual reports that such plans must file with the Internal Revenue Service.