Defined Benefits

Employer contributions for employee pension and insurance funds increased $3.2 billion in January, compared with an increase of $3 billion in December.

Mercer launched its U.S. Pension Buyout Index, which allows plan sponsors to see at a glance how much it would cost to have an insurer buy out their retiree liabilities from a defined benefit plan and how that cost changes over time.

The top Illinois House Republican and the Democrats' pension point person proposed yet another solution Wednesday to the state's public retirement system debacle, one that signals the GOP's first concession toward shifting teachers' pension costs to local school districts.

Making newly hired school and state employees enroll in a 401(k)-style plan would not seriously affect Pennsylvania's two largest traditional pension funds, so long as a new plan is adequately funded, administrators told lawmakers Wednesday.

Puerto Rican officials on Wednesday proposed what they called "severe" cost-saving measures designed to help rescue one of the U.S. territory's public pension systems that is on the brink of collapse.

A new Towers Watson survey multinational has found that 33 new International Pension Plans were established in 2012. This brings the total number of IPPs managed by the responding employers to 403.

Tennessee's treasurer said Monday that he wants to overhaul the state's public retirement system to cut costs and ensure it can pay out benefits for years to come.

AT&T is announcing a tentative agreement on wages, pensions and other benefits for more than 20,000 of its unionized workers.