401k question

What does the plan rules say? If you don't have a copy, get a copy from the plan administrator.

If you put in money on a periodic basis from your pay, then I don't see how they can deny you.

If you got some kind of contribution from the company, then there are any number of ways they can deny you. For example, they can make the contribution like an annual bonus or profit sharing, and they can state the date range that you have to be employed in order to get the contribution. There is no requirement for pro-rating this stuff for a partial year. They can also put in vesting rules. For example, they might give you the contribution, but you forfit 50% if you leave within 2 years, and forfit 75% if you leave within the first year.

Read the contract and tell us what it says.

-john-

Unfortunately you are almost certainly not eligible for the contribution. Open architecture allows employers to choose a wide variety of options. However, the most common language stipulates that any employee is considered eligible for contributions after 1 year of service; 1 yr of service is defined as having worked 1000 hours; and the employee must have been eligible for the entire plan year to receive contributions.

I can easily think of three common ways the last line probably screws you:

1. If the plan year begins Jan 1, you likely did not have 1000 hrs of service by that date and were therefore not eligible for contributions the ENTIRE year. Sometimes a plan will have two entry periods a year so you might sneek by by having 1000 hrs by July 1 2007.
2. You terminated employment before the plan year ended. Only current employees are eligible to participate. Again, you were therefore not eligible for the ENTIRE plan year (Nov & Dec. 2007).
3. I would be an unimportant body organ there is a vesting schedule. The schedule usually stipulates that after 1 full year of service you get 0% if you quit. After 2 years you get 20%. After 3 years 40%. Yada Yada.

Request a copy of the plan document. Everything you need to know will be in there. From personal experience, if you walk away with 1 penny of empoyer contributions after only 11 months of service, I will be shocked. Don't expect any different at your next job either.

Good luck.