10A
Thursday, January 29, 2004
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CECTA10
NATlj
the battalJ
Senate approves easin;
of pension fund burden
By Jim Abrams
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The
Senate, acting with rare elec
tion-year concord, passed a bill
Wednesday to reduce by $96
billion the payments companies
will have to make into their pen
sion plans this year and next.
Sponsors said the measure,
passed 86-9, will help preserve
pension benefits for millions of
workers by discouraging finan
cially strapped companies from
terminating plans as no longer
affordable.
“Our pension plans are being
battered by a perfect storm of
declining interest rates, stock mar
ket declines and a weak econo
my,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy,
D-Mass. The bill, he said, “will
help the hard-earned pensions of
millions of Americans to weather
this storm.”
The Senate must still work
out differences with the House,
which passed similar legislation
late last year, and answer admin
istration objections to a provi
sion that would excuse airlines
and steelmakers with chronic
pension underfunding problems
from $16 billion in catch-up
payments.
For thousands of companies,
speed is crucial. They face huge
increases in payments to their
pension funds if the measure
doesn't become law by April.
“A lot of companies have
suffered” already as a result of
congressional delay, said Lynn
Dudley, vice president of the
American Benefits Council, a
business group representing
employers and retirement-plan
providers.
She said her group's "mem
bers are withholding opening
plants, not increasing new hires
and avoiding improvements to
their programs until they know
what their liabilities are.”
Unions hav e also lobbied for
the legislation. Although the leg
islation will re sult in smaller
payments to pension funds over
the short run, it gives some
financial breathing space to
companies that might otherwise
go bankrupt, | ay off workers,
freeze their pension plans or
renege on the promised benefits.
Failed pension plans are
turned over t o the Pension
Benelit Guaranty Corp., a gov
ernment agency that insures
pensions for some 44 million
people in more than 30,000
defined-benefit pension plans.
The PBGC finances itself
with premiums it assesses pen
sion plan sponsors, in much the
same way the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corp. collects premi
ums from banks and thrift insti
tutions to insure their depositors.
Last year the PBGC took over
152 bankrupt single-employer
pension plans covering 206,000
people, and saw its deficit rise to
a record $11.2 billion.
Workers may lose a portion
of their benefits when the PBGC
becomes trustee of a plan. For
example, the agency announced
Wednesday it was taking over
the plan of a bankrupt North
Carolina construction company
with 6,300 workers, pension
plan assets of $95 million and
benefit promises totaling $215
million. The PBGC estimated it
will end up assuming $104 mil
lion of the $120 million short
fall, with the rest made up by
lower retiree benefits.
Pension plans are in crisis
partly because contributions
have been tied to the interest rate
on 30-year Treasury bonds. But
the Treasury Department
stopped issuing the bonds in
2001 and interest rates fell pre
cipitously, producing smaller
returns on pension plan invest
ments. Underfunding of pension
plans is now estimated to total
Senates buystii
for pension refon i
The Senate passed legislate!
Wednesday that is a short-tel
two-year fix to protect emptcl
from what could become 1
artificially inflated pension I
contributions.
Employees participating! Linfer
defined benefit pension pH e n n g
1 Total workers
Private sector worte
Aft
•91 831
SOURCE Department ol Labor
$350 billion nationwide.
The Senate bill wouldc
lish a new formula thatv
make contributions depcn
on the investment return fo
blend of corporate bond!
rates. The PBGC says ths
save companies $80 billiai
the next two yean *
Congress and the administn
work on long-term overlni
the pension system.
The measure is pamoi
important to mature indiN
such as automobiles,
retirees at some compame
number current empl
General Motors Corp..
example, has 25 retiree
every 10 active employee
will have to pay out $6bills 1
pension benefits this year.
The bill also gives relief
requires greater transparent-
unions and others imo/ve
multi-employer pension
iHima
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Student behavior same everywher
By Ben Feller
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — People who fiee urban
schools in pursuit of more wholesome settings
may be surprised by this report card: Suburban
students engage in just as much sex, drugs and
fighting as city kids do.
“The desks may be newer, the paint may be
fresher and the faces may be whiter, but the stu
dents are just as likely to have sex, use controlled
substances and break the law,” says the report
released Wednesday by The Manhattan Institute, a
New York-based conservative think tank.
Authors Jay Greene and Greg Forster analyzed
student survey data collected from the same group
of students in three waves, from 1995 to 2002. The
survey, which included an estimated 20,000 stu
dents, was sponsored by the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development and other
federal agencies.
Among the results of the study, which foe
on high school grades:
— Two-thirds of suburban and urban;
graders have had sex; 43 percent of suhi
12th-graders and 39 percent of urban 12th-gn
have had sex outside of a “romantic relation:
— 74 percent of suburban I2th-gradersa
percent of urban I2th-graders have tried i
more than two or three times.
— 22 percent of suburban 12th-grader
percent of urban 12th-graders say they has
en while drunk.
— More than 40 percent of 12th-gr
urban and suburban schools have used
drugs.
— 20 percent of urban 12th-grade girlsj
been pregnant; 14 percent of suburban 12tl
girls have. Such numbers are among thoseth
higher than many people would likely «jj
regardless of the school setting, Greene saidl
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CALL FOR PAPERS
Texas A&M University
Undergraduate
Journal of Science
All undergrads doing research are eligible to
submit their work for possible publication.
DEADLINE: February 2, 2004
Rm. 230 Reed-McDonald or email to
ujs@stuorg.tamu.edu
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