The funded status of the 100 largest corporate defined benefit pension plans as measured by the Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index dropped by $6 billion in August, and the funded ratio was down to 89.4% from 89.9% at the end of July. The pension deficit reached $162 billion, largely due to poor performance in the financial markets; however, the funding level is still a notable improvement over the $513 billion deficit from 12 months ago.