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Member, Beacon International Group, Ltd.
The average funded level of multiemployer pension plans was largely unchanged in 2014, but funding levels of individual plans varied significantly, according to a new survey.
On average, multiemployer plans were 80% funded last year, down slightly from 81% in 2013, but up from 72% in 2012 and 60% in 2008 when plan asset values plunged during the Great Recession..
In all, the plans in 2014 had $480 billion in assets, up from $473 billion in 2013, while liabilities increased to $597 billion from $585 billion.
Plan funding, though, varied widely. For example, 285 multiemployer plans of the nearly 1,300 surveyed, were more than 100% funded as of Dec. 31, 2014.
On the other hand, 201 plans were on average less than 65% funded with an aggregate deficit of $60 billion.
That low funded level of a slice of multiemployer plans triggered Congress last year to pass legislation allowing underfunded plans to cut benefits.
The new law allows participants' benefits to be cut if a plan is projected to become insolvent during a current plan year or any of the next 14 years, or any of the next 19 years if the plan's ratio of inactive participants to active participants exceeds 2-to-1 or if the plan is less than 80% funded.
Single-employer defined benefit plan sponsors covered by ERISA have new guidelines for annual funding notices in a final rule published Monday by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration.