Corporate underfunding a large prorblem

A Bloomberg sample of corporate pension plans shows significant underfunding in the companies within the S&P 500 and Canadian TSX. The median fund shortfall is a little over a half a billion. The median discount rate is 4.15% and the median expected return is 7.28%. Pensions have too high an expected rate of return and to a degree too high a discount rate. The rate should be close to the risk free rate of return if you want to know what the present value of these liabilities will be with some certainty. 

It is greater that their portfolios will do well this year as evidenced by performance through this week, but there is still a lot of risk in the market and you need significant excess returns to offset the pension shortfall.