Take Different Approaches to Find Them*

In the United States and other countries, many retirees face great difficulties in tracing their former employers in order to apply for a pension to which they are entitled. At the same time, pension plans have trouble tracking down pensioners with whom they have lost contact. The problem of lost pensions and lost pensioners was also prevalent in the United Kingdom and Australia, but these countries have established national pension registries. These registries have helped thousands of people receive their pension entitlements. In a dynamic economy where workers are changing jobs and changing residences, and employers are going out of business, moving, or being taken over, it is sometimes difficult for a worker with a claim to a pension benefit to locate the pension plan of a former employer. This article discusses what employees in the United States can do to try to locate a pension sponsored by a former employer. It then compares that with the situation for a worker in the United Kingdom and Australia. To briefly preview the findings, in the United States workers may need to contact a number of sources of information to try to find a lost pension. By comparison, a worker in the United Kingdom or Australia need only contact a single source. Both the Unite