New York-Based Multiemployer Pension Plan Celebrates Benefit Restoration Through American Rescue Plan Act
WASHINGTON – Today, the House Committee on Education and Labor released a new video detailing how the American Rescue Plan Act created a Special Financial Assistance (SFA) Program to avert the immediate crisis threatening the retirement security of America’s workers, retirees, and their families. The SFA program protects failing pension plans and restores prior benefit cuts so that retirees are made whole.
“For years, workers, retirees, businesses, and taxpayers have been waiting for Congress to enact a solution to the multiemployer pension crisis,” said Chairman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott. “Congressional Democrats and President Biden delivered a historic victory that keeps the promises made to retirees, saves businesses from going under, and shields taxpayers from the even greater cost of a multiemployer pension collapse.”
Kevin McCaffrey is President of the Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Plan, the largest plan approved for SFA to date. When the Local 707—covering more than 3,800 participants in the transportation industry—became insolvent, the law required that participants’ benefits be cut, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). These cuts impacted over 90 percent of retirees. Thanks to the Congressional Democrats’ and Biden Administration’s SFA program, Local 707 will be able to restore all benefit cuts going forward and make payments to retirees to cover prior benefit cuts.
Through the American Rescue Plan Act, the PBGC has approved five applications from plans based in New York, New Jersey, and Oregon that were either already insolvent or projected to run out of money this year. As of today, the SFA program has saved 8,088 pensions and protected an estimated 170 businesses – with many more applications to be approved in the coming months.
To read about the pension plans approved, click here.
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