service and salary level at retirement. The coverage provided and the extent to which the retirees share in the cost of the program vary throughout the company. The plans provide health and life insurance benefits only to those employees who retire directly from our service and not to those who terminate service prior to eligibility for retirement. Contributions.  It is our policy to fund our qualified pension plans in a manner that optimizes the tax deductibility and contract recovery of contributions considered within our capital deployment framework. Therefore, we may make discretionary contributions in addition to the required contributions determined in accordance with IRS regulations. We contributed $480 to our qualified pension plans in 2020. In 2021, our required contributions are approximately $360. We maintain several tax-advantaged accounts, primarily Voluntary Employees’ Beneficiary Association (VEBA) trusts, to fund the obligations for some of our other post-retirement benefit plans. For non-funded plans, claims are paid as received. Contributions to our other post-retirement benefit plans were not material in 2020 and are not expected to be material in 2021. Benefit Payments.  We expect the following benefits to be paid from our defined benefit plans over the next 10 years: Pension Benefits Other Post- retirement Benefits 2021 $ 887  $ 64  2022 912  63  2023 935  62  2024 961  60  2025 981  59  2026-2030 5,094  273  Benefit Cost.  Our annual benefit cost consists of five primary elements: For qualified pension plans and other post-retirement benefit plans, actuarial gains and losses and prior service costs or credits are initially deferred in AOCL and then amortized on a straight-line basis over future years. For our qualified U.S. government pension plans, we amortize actuarial gains and losses over a custom amortization period based on the amount of pension costs allocable to our U.S. government contracts. For the remaining qualified pension plans and other post-retirement benefit plans, we amortize only the amount of actuarial gains and losses that exceeds 10% of the greater of plan assets or benefit obligations. This amount is amortized over the average remaining service period of plan participants who are active employees unless all or almost all of a plan’s participants are inactive or are not accruing additional benefits, then the amortization period is based on the average remaining life expectancy of the plan participants. To further reduce the volatility of our annual benefit cost, gains and losses resulting from the return on plan assets are included over five years in the determination of the amortizable amount of actuarial gains and losses. For non- qualified pension plans, we recognize actuarial gains and losses immediately. 87 • the cost of benefits earned by employees for services rendered during the year. • an interest charge on our plan liabilities. • an expected return on our plan assets for the year. • actuarial gains and losses, which result from changes in assumptions and differences between actual and expected return on assets and participant experience. • the cost or credit attributed to prior service resulting from changes we make to plan benefit terms.