Pension and Other Postretirement Employee Benefit Plans

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2012

General Discussion of Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits [Abstract]

Pension and Other Postretirement Employee Benefit Plans

Pension and other postretirement employee benefit plans

For a discussion of JPMorgan Chase’s pension and other postretirement employee benefit (“OPEB”) plans, see Note 9 on pages 213–222 of JPMorgan Chase’s 2011 Annual Report.

The following table presents the components of net periodic benefit costs reported in the Consolidated Statements of Income for the Firm’s U.S. and non-U.S. defined benefit pension, defined contribution and OPEB plans.

	Pension plans
	U.S.						Non-U.S.						OPEB plans
Three months ended March 31, (in millions)	2012			2011			2012			2011			2012			2011
Components of net periodic benefit cost
Benefits earned during the period	$	68		$	62		$	10		$	9		$	—		$	—
Interest cost on benefit obligations	106			113			31			33			11			13
Expected return on plan assets	(195		)	(198		)	(33		)	(36		)	(22		)	(22		)
Amortization:
Net (gain)/loss	72			41			9			12			2			—
Prior service cost/(credit)	(11		)	(10		)	—			—			—			(2		)
Net periodic defined benefit cost	40			8			17			18			(9		)	(11		)
Other defined benefit pension plans(a)	4			7			2			4			NA			NA
Total defined benefit plans	44			15			19			22			(9		)	(11		)
Total defined contribution plans	81			78			80			78			NA			NA
Total pension and OPEB cost included in compensation expense	$	125		$	93		$	99		$	100		$	(9	)	$	(11	)

(a) Includes various defined benefit pension plans which are individually immaterial.

The fair values of plan assets for the U.S. defined benefit pension and OPEB plans and for the material non-U.S. defined benefit pension plans were $14.4 billion and $3.1 billion, respectively, as of March 31, 2012, and $11.9 billion and $3.0 billion, respectively, as of December 31, 2011. See Note 19 on page 148 of this Form 10-Q for further information on unrecognized amounts (i.e., net loss and prior service costs/(credit)) reflected in AOCI for the three-month periods ended March 31, 2012 and 2011.

The Firm does not anticipate any contribution to the U.S. defined benefit pension plan in 2012 at this time. For 2012, the cost associated with funding benefits under the Firm’s U.S. non-qualified defined benefit pension plans is expected to total $39 million. The 2012 contributions to the non-U.S. defined benefit pension and OPEB plans are expected to be $49 million and $2 million, respectively.

Effective March 19, 2012, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. became the sponsor of the Washington Mutual Pension Plan and it is anticipated that the plan’s net assets will be merged into the JPMorgan Chase Retirement Plan later in 2012.