Summary

Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO examined the content and readability of certain government-required pension documents, focusing on whether the: (1) consent forms that spouses must sign explain survivor benefits and the consequences of not selecting them; and (2) forms present the information in a way that most people can understand.

GAO found that: (1) 68 percent of the spousal consent forms served as retirement applications that listed the various payment options, including the joint and survivor (J&S) annuity, and required the worker's signature, while only one-fourth of the forms required the spouse's signature regardless of the option selected; (2) companies did not offer formal counseling to workers in 4 of 10 plans and offered only some workers counseling in about 1 of 10 plans; (3) neither laws nor regulations stated the type of information employers were required to include in spousal consent forms; (4) only 40 percent of the consent forms reviewed included information about reductions in monthly benefits, the portion of benefit continuing to the surviving spouse, and the couples' dollar amounts; (5) more than 40 percent of the forms did not explain the consequences of rejecting the J&S annuity, or explained them only partially; and (6) many of the forms had serious language problems, lacked organization and informative headings, lacked letter formatting, and used typographical characteristics that affected document readability and use.