Jul. 4--For Oregonians, many employers owe more benefits than their retirement plans can pay

You think your 401(k) is in bad shape? Your pension could be worse off. Provided you even have one.

Thirty-four of 36 large publicly traded employers operating in Oregon owe more retirement benefits than their traditional pensions can pay, an analysis by The Oregonian found.

Those retirement plans, held by companies employing an estimated 100,000 workers, were underfunded by an average of 24 percent at the end of 2008, their annual reports showed. That means they had only 76 cents for every $1 promised all workers, past and present.

Such underfunding is no surprise, given the global financial crisis. But it poses risks: Companies will spend millions in the coming year shoring up plans at the expense of profits and, increasingly, employee benefits. It can mean lower payouts for workers as they get frozen out of pension plans and lose 401(k) matches, requiring them to save even more on their own.

Experts say the benefits already earned by workers are safe, even though their federal insurer is severely underfunded.

"Workers should only be panicked if they look at the prospects ... (and think their) company's going to go out of business and the government's going out of business," said Dallas Salisbury, president of the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute. "You probably should be more concerned about your 401(k) account."

Salisbury's firm estimates the average worker nearing retirement with at least 20 years on the job lost about 25 percent of their 401(k) account's value last year.

That's taken a toll on worker confidence -- 44 percent no longer believe they can afford a comfortable retirement, up from 29 percent in 2007, according to surveys by Salisbury's institute. Many feel they have little information or control over their employers' pension decisions.

"We're always concerned about it," said Jim Kilborn, president of the United Steelworkers of America Local 6163, which represents 640 workers at Allegheny Technologies Inc.'s Wah Chang in Albany. "It's hard to know what's going to happen tomorrow. But I don't think anyone's holding onto their shorts and looking to do without."

Any recovery might be several years off. The nation's 100 largest corporate pensions lost $300 billion in value last year, according to actuarial consulting firm Milliman Inc. Collectively, these plans went from being 106 percent funded at the end of 2007 to 74 percent funded this past February.

Since then, pensions have recovered slightly -- to 80 percent funded at the end of May.

"They still have a ways to go," said John Ehrhardt, who co-authored Milliman's report. Decline since 1970s Traditional pensions, known as defined-benefit plans, date back to colonial militias and the U.S. military, according to Benefits & Compensation Digest.

American Express Co. founded the first private pension in 1875. The plans boomed after the Great Depression, especially in manufacturing and transportation firms.