One month ago, I received three reports from Social Security regarding the dollar value of my former (private) employers' pension plans. The contacts for those reports are the pension program administrators. Two of the reports had dollar figures that were several years old . I contacted the pension administrator and he was flummoxed by the reported numbers. I contacted Social Security and they had no record of these reports and did not understand why I was receiving them (no surprise having read Get What's Yours. First of all why am I getting pension reports that have nothing to do with social security? (I am waiting to file for as long as possible). We keep tabs on our pension plans. and have a financial planner. Do have any insights about why we would get non-social security pension reports? It seems not only redundant but the numbers are also misleading since they do not match our pension dollar figures.. Thank you for any advice.

Hi,

It sounds like the reports you've received are a result of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). Notices sent by Social Security as a result of ERISA are informational, with the intent of letting individuals know of their possible eligibility for benefits from various employer pension plans (https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/poms.nsf/lnx/0103201005). Social Security doesn't actually have access to sufficient information to be able to determine whether or not these individuals actually meet the requirements for such pensions, though, nor how much they could potentially receive.

As I mentioned above, notices sent as a result of ERISA are informational only. So, assuming that's what you received and if you're already aware of your rights under the pension plan referred to in the notices, then you can probably disregard the notices.

Best, Jerry