Good morning. For the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, the nation’s largest defined benefit (DB) pension plans appear to have completed a major turnaround by finishing a year with their liabilities fully funded, according to a new report.
A Willis Towers Watson (WTW) analysis of the 358 companies in the Fortune 1000 that sponsor DB pension plans in the U.S. estimates aggregate funding status reached 100% at the end of 2023. That’s two percentage points higher than 98% at the end of 2022, and a big bump from 77% in 2008.
