2016年12月英语六级阅读理解100篇：员工福利
Faced with the rapidly rising costs of employee benefits, companies arescaling 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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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。
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