Before enactment of the Employee Retirement and Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974, few rules governed the funding of defined benefit pension plans, and participants in these plans had no guarantees they would receive the benefits promised. When Studebaker’s pension plan failed in the 1960s, for example, many plan participants lost their pensions. Such experiences prompted the passage of ERISA to better protect the retirement savings of Americans covered by private pension plans. Along with other changes, ERISA established PBGC to pay the pension benefits of participants, subject to certain limits, in the event that an employer could not. ERISA also required PBGC to encourage the continuation and maintenance of voluntary private pension plans and to maintain premiums set by the corporation at the lowest level consistent with carrying out its obligations. Under ERISA, the termination of a single-employer defined-benefit plan results in an insurance claim with the single-employer program if the plan has insufficient assets to pay all benefits accrued under the plan up to the date of plan termination. PBGC may pay only a portion of the claim because ERISA places limits on the PBGC benefit guarantee. For example, PBGC generally does not guarantee annual benefits above a certain amount, currently about $44,000 per participant at age 65. Additionally, benefit increases in the 5 years immediately preceding plan termination are not fully guaranteed, though PBGC will pay a portion of these increases. The guarantee is limited to certain benefits, including so-called “shut-down benefits,”—significant subsidized early retirement benefits that are triggered by layoffs or plant closings that occur before plan termination. The guarantee does not generally include supplemental benefits, such as the temporary benefits that some plans pay to participants from the time they retire until they are eligible for Social Security benefits. Following enactment of ERISA, however, concerns were raised about the potential losses that PBGC might face from the termination of underfunded plans. To protect PBGC, ERISA was amended in 1986 to require that plan sponsors meet certain additional conditions before terminating an underfunded plan. (See app I.) For example, sponsors could voluntarily terminate their underfunded plans only if they were bankrupt or generally unable to pay their debts without the termination. Concerns about PBGC finances also resulted in efforts to strengthen the minimum funding rules incorporated by ERISA in the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). In 1987, for example, the IRC was amended to require that plan sponsors calculate each plan’s current liability, and make additional contributions to the plan if it is underfunded to the extent defined in the law. As discussed in a report, we issued earlier this year, concerns that the 30-year Treasury bond rate no longer resulted in reasonable current liability calculations has led both the Congress and the Administration to propose alternative rates for these calculations. Despite the 1987 amendments to ERISA, concerns about PBGC’s financial condition persisted. In 1990, as part of our effort to call attention to high- risk areas in the federal government, we noted that weaknesses in the single-employer insurance program’s financial condition threatened PBGC’s long-term viability. We stated that minimum funding rules still did not ensure that plan sponsors would contribute enough for terminating plans to have sufficient assets to cover all promised benefits. In 1992, we also reported that PBGC had weaknesses in its internal controls and financial systems that placed the entire agency, and not just the single- employer program, at risk. Three years later, we reported that legislation enacted in 1994 had strengthened PBGC’s program weaknesses and that we believed improvements had been significant enough for us to remove the agency’s high-risk designation. Since that time, we have continued to monitor PBGC’s financial condition and internal controls. For example, in 1998, we reported that adverse economic conditions could threaten PBGC’s financial condition despite recent improvements; in 2000, we reported that contracting weaknesses at PBGC, if uncorrected, could result in PBGC paying too much for required services; and this year, we reported that weaknesses in the PBGC budgeting process limited its control over administrative expenses. PBGC receives no direct federal tax dollars to support the single-employer pension insurance program. The program receives the assets of terminated underfunded plans and any of the sponsor’s assets that PBGC recovers during bankruptcy proceedings. PBGC finances the unfunded liabilities of terminated plans with (1) premiums paid by plan sponsors and (2) income earned from the investment of program assets. Initially, plan sponsors paid only a flat-rate premium of $1 per participant per year; however, the flat rate has been increased over the years and is currently $19 per participant per year. To provide an incentive for sponsors to better fund their plans, a variable-rate premium was added in 1987. The variable-rate premium, which started at $6 for each $1,000 of unfunded vested benefits, was initially capped at $34 per participant. The variable rate was increased to $9 for each $1,000 of unfunded vested benefits starting in 1991, and the cap on variable-rate premiums was removed starting in 1996. After increasing sharply in the 1980s, flat-rate premium income declined from $753 million in 1993 to $654 million in 2002, in constant 2002 dollars. (See fig. 1.) Income from the variable-rate premium fluctuated widely over that period. The slight decline in flat-rate premium revenue over the last decade, in real dollars, indicates that the increase in insured participants has not been sufficient to offset the effects of inflation over the period. Essentially, while the number of participants has grown since 1980, growth has been sluggish. Additionally, after increasing during the early 1980s, the number of insured single-employer plans has decreased dramatically since 1986. (See fig. 2.) The decline in variable-rate premiums in 2002 may be due to a number of factors. For example, all else equal, an increase in the rate used to determine the present value of benefits reduces the degree to which reports indicate plans are underfunded, which reduces variable-rate premium payments. The Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002 increased the statutory interest rate for variable-rate premium calculations from 85 percent to 100 percent of the interest rate on 30-year U.S. Treasury securities for plan years beginning after December 31, 2001, and before January 1, 2004. Investment income is also a large source of funds for the single-employer insurance program. The law requires PBGC to invest a portion of the funds generated by flat-rate premiums in obligations issued or guaranteed by the United States, but gives PBGC greater flexibility in the investment of other assets. For example, PBGC may invest funds recovered from terminated plans and plan sponsors in equities, real estate, or other securities and funds from variable-rate premiums in government or private fixed-income securities. According to PBGC, however, by policy, it invests all premium income in Treasury securities. As a result of the law and investment policies, the majority of the single-employer program’s assets are invested in U.S. government securities. (See fig. 3.) Since 1990, except for 3 years, PBGC has achieved a positive return on the investments of single-employer program assets. (See fig 4.) According to PBGC, over the last 10 years, the total return on these investments has averaged about 10 percent. For the most part, liabilities of the single-employer pension insurance program are comprised of the present value of insured participant benefits. PBGC calculates present values using interest rate factors that, along with a specified mortality table, reflect annuity prices, net of administrative expenses, obtained from surveys of insurance companies conducted by the American Council of Life Insurers. In addition to the estimated total liabilities of underfunded plans that have actually terminated, PBGC includes in program liabilities the estimated unfunded liabilities of underfunded plans that it believes will probably terminate in the near future. PBGC may classify an underfunded plan as a probable termination when, among other things, the plan’s sponsor is in liquidation under federal or state bankruptcy laws. The single-employer program has had an accumulated deficit—that is, program assets have been less than the present value of benefits and other liabilities—for much of its existence. (See fig. 5.) In fiscal year 1996, the program had its first accumulated surplus, and by fiscal year 2000, the accumulated surplus had increased to almost $10 billion, in 2002 dollars. However, the program’s finances reversed direction in 2001, and at the end of fiscal year 2002, its accumulated deficit was about $3.6 billion. PBGC estimates that this deficit grew to $5.7 billion by July 31, 2003. Despite this large deficit, according to a PBGC analysis, the single-employer program was estimated to have enough assets to pay benefits through 2019, given the program’s conditions and PBGC assumptions as of the end of fiscal year 2002. Losses since that time may have shortened the period over which the program will be able to cover promised benefits. The financial condition of the single-employer pension insurance program returned to an accumulated deficit in 2002 largely due to the termination, or expected termination, of several severely underfunded pension plans. In 1992, we reported that many factors contributed to the degree plans were underfunded at termination, including the payment at termination of additional benefits, such as subsidized early retirement benefits, which have been promised to plan participants if plants or companies ceased operations.These factors likely contributed to the degree that plans terminated in 2002 were underfunded. Factors that increased the severity of the plans’ unfunded liability in 2002 were the recent sharp decline in the stock market and a general decline in interest rates. The current minimum funding rules and variable-rate premiums were not effective at preventing those plans from being severely underfunded at termination.