Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits

3 Months Ended

Mar. 29, 2020

Retirement Benefits [Abstract]

Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits

PENSION AND OTHER POSTRETIREMENT BENEFITS

Pension

Single-Employer Plans

We maintain The New York Times Companies Pension Plan (the “Pension Plan”), a frozen single-employer defined benefit pension plan. The Company also jointly sponsors a defined benefit plan with The NewsGuild of New York known as the Guild-Times Adjustable Pension Plan that continues to accrue active benefits.

We also have a foreign-based pension plan for certain employees (the “foreign plan”). The information for the foreign plan is combined with the information for U.S. non-qualified plans. The benefit obligation of the foreign plan is immaterial to our total benefit obligation.

The components of net periodic pension cost were as follows:

	For the Quarters Ended
	March 29, 2020								March 31, 2019
(In thousands)	Qualified Plans			Non- Qualified Plans		All Plans			Qualified Plans			Non- Qualified Plans		All Plans
Service cost	$	2,607		$	—	$	2,607		$	1,278		$	—	$	1,278
Interest cost	11,742			1,648		13,390			14,709			2,088		16,797
Expected return on plan assets	(17,736		)	—		(17,736		)	(20,258		)	—		(20,258		)
Amortization of actuarial loss	5,655			1,521		7,176			4,635			1,094		5,729
Amortization of prior service credit	(486		)	—		(486		)	(486		)	—		(486		)
Net periodic pension (income)/cost (1)	$	1,782		$	3,169	$	4,951		$	(122	)	$	3,182	$	3,060

⁽¹⁾ The service cost component of net periodic pension cost is recognized in Total operating costs, while the other components are included in Other components of net periodic benefit costs in our Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations, below Operating profit.

During the first quarters of 2020 and 2019, we made pension contributions of $2.1 million and $2.0 million, respectively, to certain qualified pension plans. We expect contributions in 2020 to total approximately $9 million to satisfy funding requirements.

Other Postretirement Benefits

The components of net periodic postretirement benefit cost/(income) were as follows:

	For the Quarters Ended
(In thousands)	March 29, 2020			March 31, 2019
Service cost	$	7		$	7
Interest cost	256			400
Amortization of actuarial loss	763			844
Amortization of prior service credit	(1,056		)	(1,191		)
Net periodic postretirement benefit cost/(income) (1)	$	(30	)	$	60

⁽¹⁾ The service cost component of net periodic postretirement benefit cost is recognized in Total operating costs, while the other components are included in Other components of net periodic benefit costs in our Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations, below Operating profit.