A Milliman USA review of these 100 plans states that 87 of these companies recorded a deficit in their retirement accounts, compared with 60 in 2001 and 20 in 2000.

The steady decline in the stock market, along with falling interest rates has created "the perfect storm" for sinking the monetary value of such schemes, said John Ehrhardt, one of the study’s authors. During the 1990s, big business used employee pension funds to make a killing in the stock market, boosting company profits. The decline in the stock market has had the opposite effect.

The pension plan of General Motors--the largest in the country--racked up total losses of $25 billion in the past two years. The plans of GM and rival auto giant Ford are in the red to a total of $40 billion. IBM’s retirement funds are in a similar state.

The 100 biggest companies moved $34 billion into their pension accounts last year, more than triple the $9 billion paid out in 2001, to keep them solvent. The business report expects this trend to continue into 2003.

U.S. retirement plans for private companies, public employees, and endowments together lost $1 trillion over the last three years as a result of gambling on Wall Street, a decline of more than 15 percent.

Despite all this, the Milliman USA study claims the pension plans themselves remain "healthy." The April 17 Financial Times, however, notes that Standard & Poor’s has placed 12 of the largest U.S. corporations on "negative credit watch" because of the billions of dollars of pension fund losses.  
 
 
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