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Employee Benefit Plans
 3 Months Ended
Mar. 31, 2016
Defined Pension, Defined Contribution and Other Postretirement Benefit Plans [Abstract]  
Employee Benefit Plans [Text Block]
Employee Benefit Plans
Pension and Postretirement Plans. We sponsor both funded and unfunded domestic and foreign defined pension and other postretirement benefit plans, and defined contribution plans. Contributions to our plans were as follows:
 
Quarter Ended March 31,
(Dollars in millions)
2016
 
2015
Defined benefit plans
$
75

 
$
45

Defined contribution plans
78

 
96


There were no contributions to our domestic defined benefit pension plans in the quarters ended March 31, 2016 and 2015. The following table illustrates the components of net periodic benefit cost for our defined pension and other postretirement benefit plans:
 
Pension Benefits
Quarter Ended March 31,
 
Other Postretirement Benefits
Quarter Ended March 31,
(Dollars in millions)
2016
 
2015
 
2016
 
2015
Service cost
$
94

 
$
125

 
$
1

 
$
1

Interest cost
302

 
351

 
8

 
8

Expected return on plan assets
(556
)
 
(569
)
 
—

 
—

Amortization
(8
)
 
(3
)
 
—

 
—

Recognized actuarial net loss (gain)
135

 
221

 
(1
)
 
(1
)
Net settlement and curtailment loss
12

 
6

 
—

 
—

Total net periodic benefit (income) cost
$
(21
)
 
$
131

 
$
8

 
$
8


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

There were no curtailment losses related to discontinued operations for the quarters ended March 31, 2016 and 2015. Total net periodic benefit cost in the table above, for the quarter ended March 31, 2015, includes approximately $25 million related to, and recorded in, discontinued operations.
In 2015, we changed the approach we use to estimate the service and interest components of net periodic pension cost for our significant pension plans. Historically, we estimated the service and interest cost components utilizing a single weighted-average discount rate derived from the yield curve used to measure the benefit obligation at the beginning of the period. We elected to utilize a full yield curve approach in the estimation of these components by applying the specific spot rates along the yield curve used in determination of the benefit obligation to the relevant projected cash flows. We made this change to provide a more precise measurement of service and interest costs by improving the correlation between projected benefit cash flows to the corresponding spot yield curve rates. This change does not affect the measurement of our total benefit obligations. The discount rates used to measure service cost and interest cost during 2016 are 3.9% and 3.5%, respectively. The previous method would have used a discount rate for both service and interest costs of 4.1%. This change decreases the service and interest cost components of our annual net periodic pension cost by approximately $215 million for 2016. We have accounted for this change as a change in accounting estimate and, accordingly, have accounted for it prospectively, effective January 1, 2016.