The Washington Post Thursday, January 23, 1986 B3  
A worker earning $15,000 a year who retired in 1984 after 30 years in a company pension plan would have collected $385 a month in retirement benefits under the typical plan in effect in the nationÛªs medium and large business firms, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report.</br></br>Further up the income scale, a $40,000-a-year worker with 40 years in the plan would get $1,075 a month in retirement benefits, BLS economist Donald G. Schmitt calculated in the study published in the governmentÛªs Monthly Labor Review.</br></br>Combined with Social Security benefits, the pensions provided by many of the plans would give workers retirement incomes ranging from 50 percent to 100 percent of their prior annual earnings, Schmitt said.</br></br>medium and large firms. In general, pension benefits are more common and better in such firms than in smaller ones.</br></br>In order to determine what the typical pension plan would pay under various conditions, the BLS calculated benefits that would have been paid if the worker had retired at 65 in 1984, had been earning the specified amount in the last year of work and had one of several different typical work and salary histories prior to the final year.