Suchergebnisse

Multiemployer pension plans are negotiated between a union and two or more (usually many) employers in an industry. There are over 1,400 of them covering 10.4 million participants and they are insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). In the aggregate, they are now woefully underfunded, as is the PBGC's Multiemployer Program. Congress has enacted several laws in an effort to strengthen the financial position of multiemployer plans and to protect the PBGC. The most recent is the Multiemployer Pension Protection Act of (December) 2014 (MPRA). One of the tenets of pension law has been that retirement benefits once accrued and vested are inviolable. They cannot be curtailed or rescinded. The MPRA allows the trustees of certain distressed multiemployer plans to reduce the benefits of active and inactive participants including retirees in pay status. This paper examines the developments leading up to the MPRA and the underlying problems of multiemployer pension plans and the PBGC.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Multiemployer defined benefit pension plans, which are created by collective bargaining agreements covering more than one employer and generally operated under the joint trusteeship of labor and management, provide pension coverage to over 10.4 million participants in the 1,500 multiemployer plans insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Changes to the structure of the multiemployer plan framework and to PBGC's role as insurer have sought to improve plan funding. Reports of declines in plan funding have prompted questions about the financial health of these plans. The committee asked GAO to provide information on (1) the unique characteristics of multiemployer plans and (2) the challenges that multiemployer plans face and how they may affect PBGC. GAO provided a draft of this testimony to PBGC for review and comment. PBGC provided technical comments, which were incorporated, as appropriate. To address these objectives, GAO relied primarily on its previously published reports on multiemployer plans (GAO-04-423 and GAO-04-542T), and data publicly available from PBGC. GAO is not making new recommendations in this testimony."

This article examines the state of single-employer and multiemployer pension plans for the period 1980s to 2020 with particular attention to funding, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation benefit guarantees and intervention procedures, financial status, participant experience, employer premiums, and benefit payments. It then shifts to congressional efforts to save the plans beginning with the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 and continuing through the complex development of the HEROES Act with its conflicting EPPRA and GROW Act provisions. Due to an unresolved conflict between the Senate Republicans and the House Democrats, the pension provisions were removed from the compromise legislation that was signed into law at the very end of the Trump Administration. The matter will be further addressed by the new Democratic-controlled Congress and the Biden/Harris Administration. However, that may take a while. The issues are complicated and the Congress may be busy with more pressing matters for some time to come.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Multiemployer defined benefit pension plans, which are created by collective bargaining agreements covering more than one employer and generally operated under the joint trusteeship of labor and management, provide coverage to over 9.7 million of the 44 million participants insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). The recent termination of several large single-employer plans--plans sponsored by individual firms--has led to millions of dollars in benefit losses for thousands of workers and left PBGC, their public insurer, an $11.2 billion deficit as of September 30, 2003. The serious difficulties experienced by these single-employer plans have prompted questions about the health of multiemployer plans. This testimony provides information on differences between single employer and multiemployer pension plans, recent trends in the funding of multiemployer pension plans and worker participation in those plans, and factors that may pose challenges to the future prospects of multiemployer plans. GAO will soon release a separate report on multiemployer pension issues."

At head of title: Joint committee print. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Mode of access: Internet.

At the end of FY 2020, there were 1369 multiemployer ("union") pension plans in the United States with almost 10.9 million participants. However, the structure of those participants had changed drastically. By FY 2018, only 36.4% were active members for whom employers made contributions. A total of 66.6% were either retired and collecting retirement benefits or separated-vested former employees entitled to future benefits. Multiemployer pension plans in the private sector of the United States were in trouble. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 allocated $97 billion to about 250 troubled multiemployer plans with three million participants for Special Financial Assistance (SFA). Thus far 21 plans with 123,375 participants have been approved to receive $502.9 from transfers from the U.S. Treasury Department. The remainder of the allocation is to be distributed by 2030. This paper examines this important development and its implications.