Pension And Postretirement Benefits

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2020

NOTE 6. PENSION AND POSTRETIREMENT BENEFITS

Many of our employees are covered by one of our noncontributory pension plans. We also provide certain medical, dental, life insurance and death benefits to certain retired employees under various plans and accrue actuarially determined postretirement benefit costs. Our objective in funding these plans, in combination with the standards of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA), is to accumulate assets sufficient to provide benefits described in the plans to employees upon their retirement. We do not have significant funding requirements in 2020.

We recognize actuarial gains and losses on pension and postretirement plan assets in our consolidated results as a component of “Other income (expense) – net” at our annual measurement date of December 31, unless earlier remeasurements are required.

The following table details pension and postretirement benefit costs included in the accompanying consolidated statements of income. The service cost component of net periodic pension cost (benefit) is recorded in operating expenses in the consolidated statements of income while the remaining components are recorded in “Other income (expense) – net.”


	Three months ended				Nine months ended
	September 30,				September 30,
	2020		2019		2020		2019
Pension cost:
Service cost - benefits earned during the period	$	257	$	260	$	772	$	743
Interest cost on projected benefit obligation	421		463		1,265		1,520
Expected return on assets	(888)		(905)		(2,667)		(2,636)
Amortization of prior service credit	(28)		(28)		(85)		(85)
Actuarial (gain) loss	—		1,888		—		4,019
Net pension (credit) cost	$	(238)	$	1,678	$	(715)	$	3,561

Postretirement cost:
Service cost – benefits earned during the period	$	14	$	19	$	40	$	55
Interest cost on accumulated postretirement benefit obligation	104		185		312		557
Expected return on assets	(44)		(57)		(133)		(169)
Amortization of prior service credit	(583)		(425)		(1,747)		(1,277)
Net postretirement (credit) cost	$	(509)	$	(278)	$	(1,528)	$	(834)
Combined net pension and postretirement (credit) cost	$	(747)	$	1,400	$	(2,243)	$	2,727

We also provide senior- and middle-management employees with nonqualified, unfunded supplemental retirement and savings plans. Net supplemental pension benefits costs not included in the table above were $19 and $24 in the third quarter and $57 and $74 for the first nine months of 2020 and 2019, respectively. During the third quarter of 2020, we recorded an actuarial loss of $63.