Pension Funding Slightly Decreased in September

Pension liabilities rose 1.7% in September – slightly higher than the 1.5% increase in assets for the month, according to a Mellon Financial Corporation press release. Peter Austin, executive director of Mellon Pension Services, said in the release that the good month for the market was still not enough to make up for the boost in pension liabilities created by lower interest rates.

Though funding has decreased in the last four months due to the lower interest rates, the funded status of a typical plan was 6.7% higher at the end of September than at the beginning of 2006. Liabilities were 0.5% lower.

Mellon Pension Liability Indexes were launched in March 2006 and are designed to track the market values and market returns of pension liabilities for young, average and mature pension plans.

More about the Indexes can be found here .