Retirement Income Adequacy After PPA and FAS 158: Part One--Plan Sponsors' Reactions

This paper provides an overview of the major provisions of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and the pension accounting changes for single-employer defined benefit plans, as well as an explanation of the expected impact of each on plan sponsors. The results of the recent EBRI/Mercer Survey of Retirement Program Changes After PPA and New Accounting Rules are then summarized with a focus on those results that will be most important for determining retirement income adequacy in the post-PPA/FAS 158 era. In a forthcoming paper, EBRI will use these results to modify its retirement security modeling programs to simulate the impact of PPA and FASB on retirement income adequacy under a number of alternative scenarios. This will allow policymakers, retirement professionals, and the news media the opportunity to analyze these results in a timely fashion before most of the workers affected by these changes reach retirement age.