Updated May 2026 · DOL Form 5500
Corporate Pension Plans
Employer-sponsored defined benefit plans offered by private companies to their employees.
30 corporate single-employer pension plans tracked, covering 2,714,825 active and retired participants with an average funding ratio of 108.9%. Corporate defined-benefit plans peaked in the 1980s; today many large employers have frozen new benefit accruals and run their plans as closed liability books.
Corporate single-employer pension plans are the classic defined-benefit structure — one company sponsors one plan for its employees. 30 corporate plans appear in our dataset, all governed by ERISA and insured by the PBGC under the single-employer program.
Plan type shapes nearly every aspect of how a pension is regulated, funded, and ultimately backed in distress scenarios. Reading the LakeQuality pension-health grade alongside plan type tells a fuller story than the grade alone.
How Corporate Pension Plans Are Regulated
Corporate single-employer pension plans are regulated by ERISA and reported on DOL Form 5500 with Schedule SB. They are insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation up to a statutory annual maximum that varies by retirement age. Discount rates are set by reference to corporate bond yield curves under ASC 715, which has produced volatile reported funding ratios as interest rates moved.
The funding-ratio numbers on this page come from DOL EBSA Form 5500 datasets, specifically the Schedule SB actuarial valuation each plan files annually under ERISA. PBGC publications supplement this with the federal guarantee tables and at-risk designations that backstop these plans — see pbgc.gov.
3 of 30 corporate pension plans (10%) report below the 80% actuarial benchmark, with a combined unfunded liability of $13.4B across the underfunded plans. Funding ratios in this segment shift each valuation cycle as discount rates, asset returns, and contribution policy change — none of these figures are projections.
Plans by Funding Ratio
| # | Plan Name | State | Participants | Funding Ratio | Unfunded Gap | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raytheon Company Pension Plan for Salaried Employees RTX Corporation | VA | 288,395 | 106.1% | $0 | A |
| 2 | AT&T Pension Benefit Plan AT&T Inc. | TX | 286,355 | 93.7% | $2.0B | A |
| 3 | UPS Retirement Plan United Parcel Service | GA | 243,932 | 90.7% | $993.0M | A |
| 4 | FedEx Corporation Employees Pension Plan FedEx Corporation | TN | 223,371 | 101.3% | $0 | A |
| 5 | Ford Motor Company Retirement Plan Ford Motor Company | MI | 141,948 | 105.3% | $0 | A |
| 6 | IBM Personal Pension Plan IBM Corporation | NY | 140,566 | 131.0% | $0 | A |
| 7 | General Electric Pension Plan GE Aerospace (formerly General Electric) | CT | 121,730 | 91.0% | $2.0B | A |
| 8 | Boeing Company Employee Retirement Plan Boeing Company | VA | 118,601 | 92.0% | $2.2B | A |
| 9 | Verizon Management Pension Plan Verizon Communications | NJ | 112,363 | 95.6% | $505.7M | A |
| 10 | Northrop Grumman Pension Plan Northrop Grumman | VA | 106,531 | 106.2% | $0 | A |
| 11 | Honeywell International Pension Plan Honeywell International | NC | 96,300 | 132.2% | $0 | A |
| 12 | Lockheed Martin Corporation Retirement Plan Lockheed Martin | MD | 84,564 | 78.8% | $4.7B | B |
| 13 | International Paper Company Retirement Plan International Paper | TN | 83,689 | 104.0% | $0 | A |
| 14 | Johnson & Johnson Pension Plan Johnson & Johnson | NJ | 83,076 | 124.0% | $0 | A |
| 15 | Deere & Company Pension Plan John Deere | IL | 83,076 | 124.0% | $0 | A |
| 16 | Delta Air Lines Pilot Pension Plan Delta Air Lines | GA | 82,801 | 100.0% | $180K | A |
| 17 | ExxonMobil Pension Plan ExxonMobil | TX | 61,475 | 113.8% | $0 | A |
| 18 | 3M Company Pension Plan 3M Company | MN | 56,773 | 100.0% | $560K | A |
| 19 | Pfizer Inc. Retirement Annuity Plan Pfizer Inc. | NY | 56,716 | 108.8% | $0 | A |
| 20 | Textron Inc. Pension Plan Textron Inc. | RI | 51,703 | 128.2% | $0 | A |
| 21 | Caterpillar Inc. Retirement Income Plan Caterpillar Inc. | TX | 39,566 | 106.2% | $0 | A |
| 22 | General Dynamics Corporation Pension Plan General Dynamics | VA | 35,602 | 86.4% | $470.9M | A |
| 23 | Dow Chemical Company Employees Pension Plan Dow Inc. | MI | 32,746 | 93.6% | $158.0M | A |
| 24 | Kraft Heinz Company Pension Plan Kraft Heinz Company | IL | 29,036 | 116.7% | $0 | A |
| 25 | US Steel Corporation Plan for Employee Pension Benefits United States Steel | PA | 24,055 | 104.1% | $0 | A |
| 26 | General Motors Hourly-Rate Employees Pension Plan General Motors | MI | 11,395 | 77.1% | $219.7M | B |
| 27 | Procter & Gamble Retirement Plan Procter & Gamble | OH | 10,929 | 99.4% | $7.6M | A |
| 28 | Alcoa Corporation Retirement Plan Alcoa Corporation | PA | 4,115 | 119.7% | $0 | A |
| 29 | General Motors Salaried Pension Plan General Motors | MI | 3,061 | 71.5% | $187.0M | C |
| 30 | DuPont Pension & Retirement Plan DuPont de Nemours | DE | 355 | 267.1% | $0 | A |
How Health Scores Are Calculated
The Pension Health Score combines funding ratio (50% of the composite), 3-year funding trend (30%), and PBGC risk level (20%) into a 0–100 index with an A–F letter grade. Public plans use a low PBGC-risk default since they are not subject to PBGC insurance; corporate and multiemployer scoring incorporates the PBGC at-risk and Critical-status designations directly. Read the full methodology.
Browse by State
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a corporate pension pension plan?
Employer-sponsored defined benefit plans offered by private companies to their employees. Corporate single-employer pension plans are regulated by ERISA and reported on DOL Form 5500 with Schedule SB. They are insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation up to a statutory annual maximum that varies by retirement age. Discount rates are set by reference to corporate bond yield curves under ASC 715, which has produced volatile reported funding ratios as interest rates moved.
How many corporate pension plans are there?
PensionRisk tracks 30 corporate pension plans covering 2,714,825 active and retired participants. Of those, 3 (10%) report below the 80% actuarial benchmark.
What is the average funding ratio for corporate pension plans?
The average funding ratio across the tracked corporate pension plans is 108.9%. Aggregate unfunded liability across plans below 100% funded totals $13.4B. Plans above 80% are generally considered healthy by actuarial standards; plans below 60% are considered critically underfunded.
Are corporate pension plans insured by PBGC?
Yes. Corporate single-employer defined-benefit plans are insured by PBGC up to the statutory annual maximum, which varies by retirement age. PBGC publishes the current guarantee tables at pbgc.gov. The protection is real but capped — high earners with benefits above the PBGC maximum can lose the portion above the cap if a plan terminates underfunded.
Where does this data come from?
Corporate and multiemployer plan figures come from DOL EBSA Form 5500 datasets — Schedule SB for single-employer plans and Schedule MB for multiemployer plans. Form 5500 typically lags plan year-end by 9–12 months. The current dataset reflects filings available as of May 2026.
30 corporate single-employer pension plans tracked, covering 2,714,825 active and retired participants with an average funding ratio of 108.9%. Corporate defined-benefit plans peaked in the 1980s; today many large employers have frozen new benefit accruals and run their plans as closed liability books.