Private Pensions: Most Employers That Offer Pensions Use Defined Contribution Plans
Published: 1996-10-03T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the: (1) numbers and types of pension plans sponsored nationwide by private employers from 1984 to 1993; (2) proportions of total contributions made to these plans by employers and employees; (3) average administrative expense for these plans; and (4) reasons employers sponsor certain types of pension plans.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: GAO found that: (1) using a computerized database of reports employers have filed with the Internal Revenue Service, GAO found that in 1993, 88 percent of private employers with single-employer pension plans sponsored only defined contribution (DC) plans; (2) this represented a sizable increase over 1984 when 68 percent of private employers reported they had only DC plans; (3) from 1984 to 1993, the percentage of employers that offered only defined benefit (DB) plans decreased from 24 to 9 percent, and those employers offering both DC and DB plans decreased from 8 to 3 percent; (4) the growth in DC plans occurred across all employer sizes and industries; however, the percentage of employers with 2,500 or more employees that sponsored both DC and DB plans increased over the same period and nearly half of these employers continued to sponsor a DB plan in 1993; (5) the data showed that private employers generally did not require employees to contribute to DB plans and that employers provided a greater proportion of total contributions to DC plans that were the only plan offered to employees compared with DC plans that supplemented a DB plan; and (6) from 1988 to 1993, administrative expenses remained fairly constant for DC and DB plans, and the average reported administrative expense per participant was lowest for employers that offered only DC plans. GAO also found that: (1) its review of retirement literature revealed a variety of possible explanations for why employers might prefer DC over DB plans if they decide to sponsor only one type of plan; (2) these factors included increasingly complex regulations for DB plans, a surge in the number of employers terminating DB plans to acquire capital assets, and employees' growing preference for pension benefits that they can retain when they change jobs; (3) the literature also noted that an employment shift has occurred away from industries in which employers traditionally favored DB plans toward industries in which employers favored DC plans; and (4) because the literature primarily addressed factors that influence private-sector decisionmaking on pension plan design, these factors may or may not be relevant to the federal government and other public employers.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: In accordance with your interest in considering possible future changes to the structure of federal employee retirement plans, you asked that we develop information on the approaches private employers are using to provide retirement benefits to their employees and the extent to which these approaches may be changing.
As agreed with the Subcommittee, this report is the first in a series of reports that we will be preparing to respond to your request. This report describes (1) the numbers and types of pension plans sponsored nationwide by private employers during 1984 to 1993, (2) the proportions of total contributions made to these plans by employers and employees, (3) the average administrative expense for the plans, and (4) the explanations provided in retirement literature on why employers might decide to sponsor a particular type of pension plan. We plan to report separately on our efforts to determine the average employer cost of pension benefits, expressed as a percentage of salary, and the specific features of pension plans in the private sector.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: Employer-sponsored pension plans, in combination with Social Security and personal savings, provide millions of retirees and their families with retirement income. Employers can provide these benefits using two basic types of plans—defined benefit (DB) or defined contribution (DC) pension plans.
For a DB plan, the employer determines retirement benefit amounts for individual employees using specific formulas that consider certain factors, such as age, years of service, and salary levels. Employers bear the full responsibility and risk of providing sufficient funding to guarantee that the benefits promised by the formulas will be paid. The amount an employer must contribute to a DB plan can vary from year-to-year depending on changes in areas such as workforce demographics or investment earnings.
For a DC plan, the employer establishes an individual account for each eligible employee and generally promises to make a specified contribution to that account each year. Employee contributions are also often allowed or required. The employee’s retirement benefits depend on the total of employer and employee contributions to the account as well as the investment gains and losses that have accumulated at the time of retirement. Therefore, the employee bears the risk of whether the funds available at retirement will provide a sufficient level of retirement income.
Private employers are not required to provide their employees with pension benefits; however, those employers that do so must meet certain minimum legal standards. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) requires that private employers manage pension plan funds prudently and in the best interests of participants and their beneficiaries, that participants be informed of their rights and obligations, and that there be adequate disclosure of the plan’s terms and activities. For DB plans only, ERISA created a federal insurance program financed primarily by employer-paid premiums to guarantee the payment of pension benefits when an underfunded DB plan is terminated.
Administrative expenses for pension plans include fees for plan design, payroll deductions, recordkeeping, trustee services, regulatory compliance, investment management, and employee communications.
section_title: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: To provide the requested information, we used a research database of computerized IRS Form 5500 reports that is maintained by the Department of Labor (DOL). ERISA requires all private employers that sponsor pensions, regardless of their size or industry, to annually file a separate Form 5500 report for each of their pension plans. Each report is to include financial, participant, and actuarial data. Unlike other studies that tended to concentrate on the total number of each type of plan in existence, our study focused on the number of employers that used either or both types of pension plans.
We did not independently verify the accuracy of the research database; however, both IRS and DOL check the data for accuracy and consistency. It is important to note that these checks cannot substitute for reviewing each employer’s original records—the data were accurate only to the extent that employers exercised appropriate care in completing their Form 5500 reports.
As agreed with your office, we limited the scope of our review to include Form 5500 data for 1984 through 1993—the 10 most recent years for which the necessary data were available. The research database did not contain information on employers that did not offer any type of pension plan. We included only single-employer plans in our analyses, since the database did not indicate the number of companies that participated in multiemployer plans. For employers that offered both DC and DB plans, we could not determine whether these plans covered the same or different groups of employees. It is also important to recognize that the contribution and administrative expense data presented in this report are averages for large groups of employers. Thus, the data do not represent any individual employer’s pension plan arrangements or practices nor do they represent the maximum allowable employee and employer contribution rates for DC plans. Also, pension plan experiences in the entire private sector may not be generalizable to the federal government. Appendixes I and II provide more detailed information on our analyses of the Form 5500 data and the results obtained, respectively.
To obtain insights on what factors employers may consider in deciding what types of pension plans to provide their employees, we reviewed the retirement-related literature included in the bibliography at the end of this report.
We obtained written comments on a draft of this report from DOL officials. These comments are discussed at the end of this letter. We did our review in Washington, D.C., from February 1996 to July 1996 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Appendix I contains a more detailed discussion of our objectives, scope, and methodology.
section_title: Trends in the Types of Pension Plans Offered by Private Employers From 1984 to 1993
paragraphs: From 1984 to 1993, the number of private employers that sponsored single-employer pension plans increased from approximately 455,000 to almost 565,000. Over this same period, the percentage of all employers that offered only DC pension plans increased from 68 to 88 percent. The percentage of employers that offered only DB plans decreased from 24 to 9 percent, and the percentage that offered both DC and DB plans decreased from 8 to 3 percent. Figure 1 shows the change in the percentage of employers offering each combination of pension plans from 1984 to 1993.
The increase in the percentage of employers sponsoring only DC plans occurred across companies of all sizes. In 1984, the majority of employers with fewer than 500 employees offered only DC plans, while the majority of employers with 500 or more employees sponsored DB plans—either alone or in combination with a DC plan. By 1993, the only employment-size categories where DB plans continued to be offered by the majority of companies were employers with 10,000 to 19,999 employees and 20,000 to 49,999 employees. Figures 2 and 3 show the percentage of employers offering the various types of pension plans by employer size for 1984 and 1993, respectively.
The increase in the percentage of employers offering only DC plans occurred across all industries. For example, the number of employers in the services industry that sponsored pension plans increased from 183,908 in 1984 to 268,533 in 1993, and the percentage of those employers that offered only DC plans increased from 71 to 93 percent. Table 1 shows the numbers of employers that sponsored pension plans and the proportion of those employers that sponsored only DC plans by industry for 1984 and 1993.
The DOL database was not readily amenable to tracking the pension plans of individual employers over the 1984 to 1993 time period. Accordingly, we did not determine the extent to which individual employers may have terminated and replaced their DB plans with DC plans. However, one study examined 11,950 employers that sponsored DB plans in 1985. For the 6,974 of these employers that filed a Form 5500 report in 1992, the study found that 1,449 (or about 21 percent) of the employers had terminated their DB plans and adopted or retained DC plans.
Larger employers continued to use DB plans more extensively than smaller employers. From 1984 to 1993, an increasing proportion of the employers with 2,500 or more employees offered both DC and DB plans. In 1993, nearly half of these employers included a DB plan as part of their retirement package—with or without a supplementary DC plan. Table 2 shows the percentage of employers that offered only DC, DC and DB, or only DB plans by employer size for 1984 and 1993.
section_title: Trends in the Ratios of Employer-to- Employee Contributions to Pension Plans
paragraphs: In 1993, the average ratio of employer-to-employee contributions for employers that sponsored only DC plans was 1.8 (that is, employers contributed $1.80 for each $1.00 contributed by employees). The average ratio for employers that sponsored only DB plans was 19.7. For employers that sponsored both DC and DB plans, the ratios were 0.6 and 58.8, respectively. These results suggest that most private employers did not require employees to contribute to their DB plans. Furthermore, employers contributed proportionately more to DC plans that were designed to provide primary pension benefits than they did to DC plans that supplemented the benefits of a DB plan.
From 1988 to 1993, employers provided a declining proportion of the total contributions for DC plans and an increasing proportion of the total contributions for DB plans, regardless of whether they offered one or both types of plans. The ratio of employer-to-employee contributions decreased from approximately 3.8 to 1.8 for employers that sponsored only DC plans and, with considerable fluctuation during the intervening years, increased from 19.1 in 1988 to 19.7 in 1993 for employers that sponsored only DB plans. Similarly, for employers that sponsored both DC and DB plans, the ratio decreased from 0.8 to 0.6 for the DC plans and increased from 20.1 to 58.8 for the DB plans. Figure 4 shows these ratios by the type of plans sponsored from 1988 to 1993.
section_title: Trends in Administrative Expenses for Private Pensions
paragraphs: In 1993, the average reported administrative expense per plan participant was $103 for employers that sponsored only DC plans and $157 for employers that sponsored only DB plans. For employers that sponsored both DC and DB plans, the administrative expense per participant was $71 and $125, respectively. Therefore, a retirement benefits package that consisted of only a DC plan was the least expensive to administer, on average. These results also suggest that employers that sponsor both DC and DB plans may experience some administrative efficiencies compared with employers that offer only one type of pension plan. Although we did not analyze administrative expenses by employer size, the literature indicates that larger companies incur lower administrative expenses because of considerable economies of scale.
From 1988 to 1993, the average reported administrative expense per participant remained fairly constant for both DC and DB plans.Consequently, growth in administrative expenses did not appear to explain why employers that already had a DB plan would shift to a DC plan. However, the lower administrative expense associated with DC versus DB plans might have been an influential factor for employers designing a retirement benefits package for the first time. Figure 5 shows the average administrative expense per participant for pension plans by the type(s) of plans employers offered from 1988 to 1993.
section_title: Possible Explanations of the Growth in DC Plans Provided by the Literature
paragraphs: The literature suggested various factors that may explain why employers might prefer to offer only DC plans to their employees. These factors included (1) changes in pension regulations and tax policy that may favor DC plans over DB plans, (2) increases in the stock and bond markets that may encourage employers to terminate DB plans to capture retirement fund assets that exceed plan liabilities, and (3) changes in workers’ preferences that are based on their expectations of short tenures with several employers.
Since its enactment in 1974, Congress has passed many laws that amended ERISA and increased the complexity of pension regulations. For example, employers must comply with certain minimum funding requirements and maximum funding limits, limits on plan participation by highly compensated individuals or owners, and time limits on how long employees must work before being entitled to pension benefits. Since ERISA was enacted, the plan termination insurance premiums paid by employers with DB plans have increased from $1 to $19 for each plan participant and an additional variable premium is required for underfunded plans. Some studies indicated that the increasing complexity of pension regulations was more burdensome for DB plans compared with DC plans—particularly for smaller employers.
Changes in tax policy may also have affected employers’ choice of DC plans over DB plans. For example, in 1978, Congress added section 401(k) to the IRS Tax Code that allowed employers to establish DC plans to which employers and/or employees could contribute on a pretax basis and could defer taxes on earnings until funds are withdrawn from the plan. The number of 401(k) plans offered by employers that sponsored only DC plans increased from 13,610 in 1984 to 155,384 in 1993.
During the 1980s, a strong stock market and higher long-term interest rates contributed to an increase in the number of overfunded DB plans.Employers can terminate an overfunded plan by purchasing annuities to satisfy the plan’s current obligations and “reverting” any excess assets back to the company. Some employers use the excess assets for nonpension purposes, such as investment in plant and equipment or retirement of long-term debt. The literature indicated that employers frequently replace terminated DB plans with either a new DB plan or DC plan; however, employers are not legally required to do so. From 1975 to 1988, employers terminated an average of 6,500 DB plans each year, although not all of these terminations were the result of a reversion.
The rising stock and bond markets were also credited with enhancing the popularity of DC plans with workers who saw their pension account balances increase dramatically. Employees in DC plans are immediately entitled to their own contributions and any earnings on those contributions if they change employers. Moreover, employees in DC plans are entitled to the contributions made by their employers as well as the earnings on those contributions after a minimum period of employment (no more than 7 years). The literature suggests that some workers may prefer DC plans because they are easier to understand and workers can take their pension benefits with them if they were to change jobs.
Some of the factors that may influence private employers to choose one type of plan over another are not relevant to public employers, including the federal government. For example, because governments are not taxpaying entities, they are not influenced by opportunities to reduce federal taxes on their revenues. Furthermore, governments that finance their pension plans on a pay-as-you-go basis have no opportunity to revert excess pension assets for other purposes.
Several studies suggested that the reduction in the number of employers with DB plans was not related to any particular policy considerations, but resulted largely because of shifts in the U.S. labor market. Specifically, during the 1980s, employment grew in the services industry where employers favored DC plans, while employment declined in the manufacturing industry where employers traditionally sponsored DB plans. Other studies indicate that many employers will continue to use DB plans as a human resource tool to attract workers with certain characteristics, reward long tenured employees, and achieve desired employee retention patterns. Furthermore, as the workforce ages and retirement becomes imminent for more older workers, employees may begin to place more value on DB plans as they evaluate the sufficiency of their DC accounts. In response to these considerations, an increasing number of employers are adopting hybrid retirement programs that combine the features of DC plans and DB plans.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We requested comments on a draft of this report from the Secretary of Labor or his designee. In a letter dated September 3, 1996, the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Pension and Welfare Benefits provided Labor’s comments. The comments were of a technical nature and suggested that we make it more prominently clear that our results (1) reflect only those employers that sponsored single-employer pension plans, (2) may overstate total employer contributions and understate employee contributions as a result of inconsistent reporting on the Form 5500, and (3) reflect only those administrative expenses actually reported on the Form 5500. We clarified the report where necessary to reflect these comments.
The Assistant Secretary also suggested that the report provide more information on the number of participants covered by only DC, DC and DB, or only DB plans. We agree that this information could be very useful. However, our study was designed with the employer as the unit of analysis and did not allow us to develop extensive information on pension participants.
We are sending copies of this report to the Ranking Minority Member of the Subcommittee, the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the Secretary of Labor, and other interested parties. Copies will also be made available to others upon request.
Major contributors to this report are listed in appendix III. If you have any questions, please call me at (202) 512-7680.
section_title: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology
paragraphs: In June 1995, the Chairman, Subcommittee on Civil Service, House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, asked us to provide information on the use of defined contribution pension plans in the private sector. He said that such information would assist congressional decisionmakers as they consider the possible design of a retirement system for new federal hires. The objectives of our review were to determine how many private employers offered a retirement program consisting of (1) only defined contribution (DC) plans, (2) only defined benefit (DB) plans, or (3) a combination of the two types of plans; the average employer and employee contributions to the plans;the average administrative expenses charged to the plans; and the factors that may influence private sector employers when they decide to offer DC plans versus DB plans as a part of their employees’ retirement package.
To accomplish the first three objectives, we used a research database of computerized IRS Form 5500 reports maintained by the Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration of the Department of Labor (DOL). Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, private employers must annually file a separate Form 5500 report with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for each of their pension plans. Each report is to contain financial, participant, and actuarial data. We did not independently verify the accuracy of the DOL database. However, IRS edits the reports by checking addition and consistency on financial and other record items and corresponds with filers to obtain corrected data before providing the computerized data to DOL. DOL further edits the Form 5500 data to identify problems, such as truncated or incorrect entries, before constructing its research database, which consists of (1) all plans with 100 or more participants and (2) a 10-percent sample that is weighted to represent the universe of all plans with fewer than 100 participants.
As agreed with your office, we limited the scope of our review to include Form 5500 data for 1984 through 1993—the 10 most recent years for which the DOL database was available. We were unable to determine the number of current employees covered by plans with fewer than 100 participants; therefore, our analyses do not address the number of current employees covered by employers that sponsor only DC, both DC and DB, or only DB plans. The data shown in this report reflect averages for large groups of employers and do not represent any individual employer’s pension plan arrangements or practices. Pension plan experiences of the entire private sector may not be generalizable to the federal government. Moreover, there are no obvious or agreed-upon criteria to determine which private-sector industry type should be or is the most comparable to the federal government. We relied on a DOL programmer with extensive knowledge of the Form 5500 database to complete all of the analyses described in this appendix.
To determine the number of employers that sponsored only DC plans, only DB plans, or both types of plans, we sorted the data for each year on the basis of (1) a unique employer identification number and (2) the indicated plan type included on each Form 5500 report. Because of incomplete data, we did not include “multiemployer” plans in our study. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), multiemployer plans are generally DB plans; they represented 0.4 percent of all plans for 1992.
We stratified our analyses by employer size and industry type using the same category breakouts included in DOL’s annual reports on private sector pensions. When we stratified the data, we included only those employers for which we could determine the number of employees or the appropriate industry, respectively, from the database. Table I.1 shows the number of employers with indeterminate employer size or industry category for each year in our study.
According to the DOL programmer, IRS began editing the financial data included on the Form 5500 database in 1988; thus, the financial data for the years preceding 1988 were less reliable. Therefore, we only included the data for 1988 through 1993 for our analyses of employer and employee contributions and administrative expenses.
To determine the average employer and employee contribution to plans sponsored by employers with only DC plans, only DB plans, or both types of plans, we divided the sum of all reported employer or employee contributions by the sum of all participants covered by the plans. We included only participants for those plans for which employer or employee contributions were reported. According to a DOL representative, plans that reported 100-percent employee participation tended to be ones where employers make automatic contributions to the plan on behalf of their employees. Therefore, we did not include these plans when computing employee contribution amounts. It is important to note that employers are not required to make contributions to DB plans each year—contribution amounts are determined on the basis of current actuarial assumptions and the market value of fund assets.
To determine the average administrative expense per participant of plans sponsored by employers with only DC plans, only DB plans, or both types of plans, we divided the sum of all reported administrative expenses by the sum of all participants covered by the plans. We included only participants for those plans that employers reported administrative expenses. According to DOL representatives, employers generally report only those administrative expenses that are actually charged to the plans and exclude expenses taken directly out of employee contributions or investment returns. Therefore, the administrative expenses may be underreported in these data.
To address the fourth objective—to identify factors that may influence private employers to sponsor DC rather than DB plans—we reviewed retirement-related literature that we identified using an on-line business periodical system and bibliographies from EBRI and Congressional Research Service publications.
section_title: IRS Form 5500 Analysis Results
paragraphs: Table II.1: Number of Private Sector Employers, by Type of Pension Plan Offered (1984-1993)
Table II.2: Number of Participants Covered by Private Pension Plans, by Type of Plan Offered (1984-1993)
Table II.3: Number of Private Sector Employers, by Employer Size and Type of Pension Plan Offered (1984-1993)
Type of pension plan(s) offered (continued)
Type of pension plan(s) offered (continued)
Type of pension plan(s) offered (continued)
Table II.4: Number of Private Sector Employers, by Industry and Type of Pension Plan Offered (1984-1993)
Type of pension plan(s) offered (continued)
Type of pension plan(s) offered (continued)
Type of pension plan(s) offered (continued)
Type of plan(s) offered Note 1: This table includes only those employers that sponsored single-employer pension plans. Furthermore, the average contribution amounts were computed only for plans with reported employer and/or employee contributions. It is important to note that employers are not necessarily required to make contributions to DB plans each year—contribution amounts are determined on the basis of current actuarial assumptions and the market value of fund assets. Because contribution amounts are averages across all plans, they do not represent the maximum amounts employees are allowed to contribute nor the maximum employer matching contributions allowed by the plans.
Note 2: Pension plan experiences of the entire private sector may not be generalizable to the federal government. Moreover, there are no obvious or agreed upon criteria to determine which private-sector industry type should be or is the most comparable to the federal government.
subsections: section_title: Table II.6: Average Employer and Employee Contributions to Pension Plans, by Type of Plan for Employers Offering Both DB and DC Plans (1988-1993)
paragraphs: Defined benefit (primary) supplementary) supplementary)
Note 1: For employers that sponsored both DB and DC plans, the database that we analyzed categorizes the DB plan as “primary” and the DC plan as “supplementary,” with very few exceptions. When more than one DC plan is offered, the largest one is generally categorized as the first supplementary plan.
Note 2: This table includes only those employers that sponsored single-employer pension plans. Furthermore, the average contribution amounts were computed only for plans with reported employer and/or employee contributions. It is important to note that employers are not necessarily required to make contributions to DB plans each year—contribution amounts are determined on the basis of current actuarial assumptions and the market value of fund assets. Because contribution amounts are averages across all plans, they do not represent the maximum amounts employees are allowed to contribute nor the maximum employer matching contributions allowed by the plans.
Note 3: Pension plan experiences of the entire private sector are not generalizable to the federal government. Moreover, there are no obvious or agreed upon criteria to determine which private-sector industry type should be or is the most comparable to the federal government.
Type of plan(s) offered Defined contribution (DC) and defined benefit (DB)
section_title: Major Contributors to This Report
subsections: section_title: General Government Division, Washington, D.C.
section_title: Bibliography
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