Thoughts from the Frontline: "This week we will look with fresh eyes at an old problem: US pension funds, both public and private, are under-funded, and the situation is getting worse. And the US taxpayer is going to get to fund the difference. The recent slew of data on pension funds suggests that little is being done to correct the huge and mounting problems I have written about for years. Even the recent market upturns of the past few years have not been as big a help as it should have been. I wrote this over two years ago:

'...there is something north of $1 trillion dollars in equity assets in the 123 state pension funds covered in this [Wilshire] study. My back of the napkin analysis shows that pension fund estimates assume that the equity portion of the pension fund assets will grow by 10% or around $100 billion per year.

'That means in 7 years and at 10% compounding, they are assuming there will be approximately $1 trillion dollars in growth from the equity portion of their assets.

'If the stock market is flat, they will be short $1 trillion in only 7 years, from a 'mere' $180 billion shortfall today. If the market grows at 3%, the states will be down $750 billion from their estimates.'

In the last few years since then, corporate earnings have grown well above the long term trend and the broad stock market has grown over 10% a year. Surely, then, things should better. Sadly, they have not improved. Let's look at some recent data. First, let's look at corporate America and then at Public (state, county and city) pension funds.

Companies with underfunded pension plans reported a record shortfall of $353.7 billion in their latest filings with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), Executive Director Bradley Belt told the Senate Finance Committee last week. That is up considerably from the $279 billion reported a year earlier, and over $300 billion from four years ago. The total increase in underfunding last year was $75 billio"