The combined funded status of the 100 largest U.S. corporate defined benefit pension plans studied by Milliman decreased by $97 billion in the first six business days of August.
For the entire month of July, plans in the Milliman 100 Pension Funding index had a $68 billion decline, dropping the funding ratio to 83% from 87%.
In July, the plans experienced a $62 billion increase in liabilities and an investment loss of $6 billion, boosting the combined deficit to $254 billion.
The aggregate assets of the S&P 1500 company plans totaled $1.488 trillion in July, up from $1.46 trillion.
John Ehrhardt, principal, consulting actuary and co-author of the Milliman 100 index, said in a telephone interview that the combined $351 billion deficit still is better than the $446 billion deficit in August 2010.
He said that for most of the year since last August “we've been having good asset returns dragged down by liability losses due to interest rate losses. We gave back all those asset gains in a few days.”
