Attachment A - Proposed Defined Benefit Questions

Attachment A,

1/9/2008

Proposed questions for the NCS Survey

Questions National Compensation Survey plans to ask respondents who have defined benefit pension plans:

1. Are new employees able to participate in this defined benefit plan?

     Yes (Finished)

     No

     Not Determinable

2. In what year did new employees become ineligible to participate in this plan?

Year: ___________ (Approximate year is acceptable)

     Not determinable

3. You may have heard that some companies have decided to freeze benefits in their pension plans. For this plan, have benefits been frozen or are they still accruing for participants?

     All current participants continue to accrue benefits

     A subset of current participants accrue benefits

     No current participants are accruing benefits

     Not determinable

4. What are other retirement plan options for those who could not participate in this plan?

     A new defined benefits plan

     A new defined contributions plan

     An enhancement of an existing defined contributions plan

     Other

(if choosing from the following, only one choice may be checked)

     Nothing replaced the defined benefits plan

     Not determinable

In Question 3, a “subset of current participants” means there is a group of employees that still accrue benefits, and a group that does not. An example of this would be if people hired only before a certain date still get the accrual. This is the case with the Federal defined benefit plan.