Is Finding Every Missing Retirement Plan Participant Worth It? (1)

A year-old government project aimed at reuniting workers with forgotten retirement funds is sitting on accounts containing as little as 12 cents.

Stephanie Cibinic, a staff attorney at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, explained Jan. 18 to attendees at the American Bar Association’s tax conference in New Orleans that the recently expanded missing participants program has empowered the federal insurer to hunt for unclaimed benefits big and small. She said the popular online search page the agency created contains data from terminated plans that owe participants anywhere from pennies to $1 million.

While they generally praised the comprehensive approach, some ...