This is the second year the company has made a matching contribution.

Assume an employee earning $40,000 contributes $2,000 and that the company provides a matching contribution of $1,000.

The average matching contribution from their companies, meanwhile, grew to 2.8 percent of pay in 2002 from 2.5 percent a year earlier.

No word on whether IBM will have to make a matching contribution.

It will be in the form of grants that will be paid out over five years and that will require matching contributions.

"Anyone who has such a plan available and isn't contributing at least to the point of getting matching contributions from an employer is wasting an opportunity."

The Boxer-Corzine bill would also allow employees to sell any matching contributions of company stock after holding it 90 days.

There are several contingencies for that appropriation, however, one of which is a matching contribution from New York City.

Most companies that provide matching contributions match up to 3 percent of pay, but they use different formulas to get there.

So if you set aside 10 percent of your salary, your company should make a matching contribution each time you do.