The stock market helped, and so did employer contributions that were greater than expected—giving the largest U.S. pension plans a “modest” improvement in funded status at year-end 2017 over where they were at the end of 2016.
That’s according to a Willis Towers Watson analysis, which finds that, among the 389 Fortune 1000 companies that sponsor U.S. defined benefit pension plans and have a December fiscal-year-end date, the aggregate pension funded status is estimated to be 83 percent at the end of 2017, compared with 81 percent at the end of 2016.
The analysis also finds that the pension deficit is projected to have decreased to $292 billion at the end of 2017, compared with a $317 billion deficit at the end of 2016.
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