X's Pension Realities

Underfunded pension plans can be quite terrifying in some circumstances. The above exhibit, extracted from page F-38 of U.S. Steel's 2011 10K filing, reveals that PBO of $10.8b exceed the fair value of plan assets by $2.4b and "other benefits" exceed plan assets by $2.7b, for a total underfunded status of $5.2b. As David Trainer points out in a 6/20 Seeking Alpha post, this massive deficit is just under twice the size of X's current $2.76b market cap.