21 Percent of Firms May keep Pensions at Current Levels
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Time for a little 'Business Buzz' now. Counting on your pension to get you through retirement? Well, you may need a backup plan. Carrie Lee reports live from the Nasdaq market site. This sounds ominous.</s>CARRIE LEE, CNN FINANCIAL NEWS CORRESPONDENT: No, it seems like a good idea to have a backup plan, right? Well a resurgent stock market has actually failed to reduce pension shortfalls. And that's prompting more than a third of U.S. companies with a pension plan to say they will freeze benefits. Now 21 percent of employers say they are going to freeze benefits at current levels. This according to a Hewitt Associates study of more than 200 large companies if Congress and regulators do not provide some relief. Seventeen percent say they will halt benefits to new employees. Now companies have been considering pension cutbacks, despite big market gains last year, because the amount of benefits they estimate though (ph) all retirees has actually grown faster than assets. Now still, pension systems have fallen off in popularity in recent years, the traditional pension plan. But still, 45 percent of companies in 2003 did offer them. So, Carol, potentially affecting quite a lot of people in the United States here.</s>COSTELLO: Quick look at the futures.</s>LEE: Things looking a bit weak this morning. We don't have any economic reports to help the session. Yesterday we did see a mixed market. The Nasdaq moving higher for the third straight trading session for 2004. The Dow a little bit weak. Today, Amazon.com in focus. The company is being investigated by a record industry trade body over possible illegal importation of CDs. This according to the Financial Times Web site -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Carrie Lee reporting live from the Nasdaq market site. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com