英语6级 阅读(六级 阅读)

Faced with the rapidly rising costs of employee benefits, companies are scaling back. It's become distressingly clear that employees are increasingly on their own when it comes to retirement savings and health care.

Employers don't typically trash (丢弃) an important employee benefit-too much negative press-but they are shifting more of these costs onto workers. who feel it in the form of higher health-care premiums, rising co-payments on drugs and much less certainty about their retirement finances.

Towers Perrin. a global human-resources-consulting firm, recently surveyed hundreds of U.S. companies representing more than 13 million employees on changer they are making-or contemplating making-to their employee-benefits packages. The knife cuts deepest on the most expensive benefits, with the biggest often being healty care.

It costs the average American company more than $14,000 per year to provide coverage to an employee and her family. The employer's response: shift more of that growing burden to workers. As a result, companies have seen their health-care spending rise 29% over the past five years.but employees have seen their outlays-for premiums, co-pays and deductibles-rise 40%.

Retiree health care is getting hit hardest-just when the boomer generation needs it most. Of the employerssurveyed, 45% have already reduced or eliminated subsidized health-care coverage for future retirees, and an additional 24% are planning to do so or considering it. Of those offering the perk(额外补贴), roughly 25% put a dollar limit on how much they will spend per retiree. "Once the limit is reached, future inflation risk transfers to the retiree," notes Ron Fontanetta. an executive with Towers Perrin.

Corporate pensions, the third leg of the proverbial retirement stool (the other two being Social Security and personal savings), are also being eroded as the foundering (下挫的) stock market wreaks havoc on employer pension funds. At the end of 2008. employer-sponsored pension plans were underfunded by more than $400billion, according to Mercer, a management-consulting firn. The recent stock-market rally has halved that deficit. but it remains a funding sore spot and is one more reason that companies are turning away from this benefit.

"Companies initiated many of these benefits in a different time," says Fontanetta. "Retiree benefits started being offered when many companies had a young workforce with few retirees. so it was not really a cost they had to contend with.” Today it's the reverse, particularly in old-line industries.Detroit’s Big Three automakers, for example, have more than Four rimes as many retirees as active hourly workers.

1. Instead of ending important employee benefits. employers are_____________.

2. According to Towers Perrin's survey, which 8spect of employee benefits is the most profoundly impacted?

3. The scaling down of retiree health greatly affected_________________.

4. Because of the stock market slump, companies are giving up_________________.

5. The last paragraph implies that companies cut back on retiree benefits because of_____________________.

答案：

1.[shifting more of these costs onto workers]

[定位]第2段第1句。

解析：原文的trash(丢弃)和题干中的ending表达的是相同的意思，都是说雇主们并未真的停止提供福利，而是将福利成本转移到员工身上。原文but后的内容即是需要填入的正确答案。

2.[Health care.]

[定位]第3段末句。

解析：根据题干中Towers Perrin 查找到第3段。题干the most profoundly impacted 是对原文cuts deepest的近义改写。题目问的是具体某方面的削减，答案在后面找，即员工福利削减最大的是医疗保健。

3.[the boomer generation]

[定位]第5段第1句。

解析：原文说在boomer generation 最需要退休医保的时候，退休医保被削减最多，即退休医保的缩减对 the boomer generation 影响很大。

4.[corporate pensions]

[定位]第6段第1句及第3句。

解析：该段第1句提到，股市下跌对企业养老金基金产生极严重的破坏。最后一句说，虽然股市有所反弹，但企业还是turning away from this benefit，题干giving up对应原文turning away from，this benefit 指代的是 corporate pensions。

5.[the larger number of retirees]

[定位]最后一段最后一句。

解析：原文说企业起初提供福利的情形和现在不同。原来退休员工很少，但是现在退休员工占多数，可以提炼成the larger number of retirees。

(编辑实习：王晓晓)

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