But they should not require 40 years of employment to be eligible to receive ANY retirement funds. I don't know how you got confused about this. In the USA pen

But they should not require 40 years of employment to be eligible to receive ANY retirement funds. I don't know how you got confused about this. In the USA pensions must vest at 100% after 3 to 7 years of work (depending on details). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Retirement_Income_Security_Act_of_1974#Pension_vesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Retirement_Income_Sec... What's likely in this case is that the employee can't start drawing on his pension until he's 62 years old.