Corporate defined benefit plan assets increased by $10.5 billion in the second quarter of 2015, to reach $3.12 trillion, a 0.33% increase, according to the latest Federal Reserve report released Friday. Corporate defined contribution plans increased by $28.1 billion, to reach $5.46 trillion, a 0.52% increase.
According to the Federal Reserve's Financial Accounts of the United States report issued Sept. 18 — formerly known as the Flow of Funds Accounts — state and local government defined benefit pension assets added $41.9 billion in the second quarter, to reach $5.05 trillion, a 0.83% increase. Defined contribution assets increased $7.2 billion, reaching $543.7 billion, a 1.34% increase.
Public plans’ funded status — total defined benefit and other assets minus pension benefit claims — dipped 0.43%, or $16.5 billion, in the second quarter, to $3.8 trillion. Keith Brainard, research director of the Austin, Texas-based National Association of State Retirement Administrators, said that is because “as a group, public pension funds distribute about 3% in excess of what they collect” annually.
