阅读试题

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.

参考译文

面对飞速上涨的员工福利成本，许多公司正在缩减他们承担的比例。在退休储蓄和医疗保健问题上，雇员越来越需要依靠自己。这一显而易见的局面令人十分沮丧。

[1]雇主通常不是废除重要的员工福利——因为有太多的负面压力——但他们在将更多的福利成本转移到工人身上。工人们从更高的医疗保险费、不断增加的药物共付费用，以及退体后的财务状况越来越不确定等方面都能感觉到这一点。

韬睿咨询公司，一家全球性的人力资源咨询公司。最近调查了美国数百家公司正在对其员工福利计划做出或考虑做出的改变，这些公司拥有的员工总数超过了l，300万。[2]削减最大的是那些最耗钱的福利，而其中最大的一块通常又是医疗保健。

平均起来，一家美国公司每年花费超过14，000多美元向每位职工及其家属提供医疗保障。雇主们的应对方法是：将这个日益加重的负担更多地转交给工人。于是，公司在过去5年里的医疗开支增长了29%，而职工的支出——保险费、共付费用和自付额——增长了40%。

[3]退休员工医疗保健被削减最多——就在婴儿潮一代最需要医疗保健的时候。被调查的雇主中，有45%已经减少或取消了未来退体员工的医疗费用津贴，另外有24%的雇主准备或在考虑这样做。在支付这类津贴的雇主中，大约有25%为退休者能报销的费用设置了上限。“一旦达到这个上限，未来通货膨胀的风险将转移到退休员工身上，”韬睿咨询公司高管罗恩·方特尼特如是说。

[4]这些养老金是退休人员收入的第三大支柱（另两个分别为社会保障和个人储蓄，然而随着股市下挫给企业养老金基金带来十分严重的破坏。这第三大支柱也遭到了侵蚀。根据美世咨询公司的数据，在2008年年底，由雇主资助的退体金计划资金短缺超出4，000亿美元。[4]虽然近期股市反弹使赤字减少了一半，但这依然是融资的痛处，同时也是企业逐渐取消养老金的另一个原因。

“公司起初提供福利时的情形（和现在）不同”，方特尼特说。“许多公司在其劳工比较年轻化、退休人员比较少的时候开始提供退休人员福利，因此那时负担退休福利的成本并不是大问题。”[5]现在情形恰好相反，尤其是在传统行业中。像底特律的三大汽车制造商，其退休员工比在职员工多出四倍。

测试题

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_____________________.

答案详解

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。