‘It’s really over’ for most of us 4,061

USA Today had a story about corporate plans heading for extinction noting:

Most U.S. companies no longer offer defined-benefit pensions, which typically provided guaranteed monthly payments to workers when they retired….[A]ccording to Mercer’s 2020 Defined Benefit Outlook…63% of companies with defined-benefit pensions “are considering termination” of the plan within half a decade…. Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said in a recent interview: “It’s really over in the private sector. The question is, just when does the last plan close down?” The number of pension plans offering defined benefits – which means the payouts are guaranteed – plummeted by about 73% from 1986 to 2016, according to the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration.

Which got me to thinking where my profession of Enrolled Actuary (EA), which exists solely to certify to the funding of Defined Benefit plans, is headed.

There have been 8,747 EAs minted since 1974 when ERISA came in and they made anyone with three years of relevant experience and a modicum of test taking ability an EA if they wanted to be one. Currently there are 4,061 EAs on the active roster (with a re-enrollment period set to start next month). Of those there are 261 in New Jersey and 10 in Union County. Of the first 1,000 EAs created 69 remain active. Lists by name for the latter two categories are below.

We may be losing the large single-employer, multiemployer, and eventually public sector defined benefit plans but for EAs in the small-plan market the business is there though moved over to the Defined Contribution side. I would suggest that if 401(a)(4) testing required EA certification the designation would easily survive the next decade, though not doing the work originally intended.