Retirement Benefits of More Than 350,000 Central States Workers and Retirees Saved by the American Rescue Plan Pension Relief
Committee Releases New Video Featuring Impacted Central States Retirees
WASHINGTON – Today, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) announced that 357,056 participants of the Central States Pension Fund will have their retirement benefits saved and 1,005 businesses contributing to the plan will be protected. The pension relief was made possible through the American Rescue Plan, which included a solution to the multiemployer pension crisis.
To watch the video, click here.
Special Thanks: Ken Stribling, Davey Grubbs, Bernie Anderson, Dana Vargo, Don Vargo, Frank Pastorino, Tom Schwarzenberger, Quinta Schwarzenberger, Dale Hanner, Cynthia McDaniel, Jack Palush, and Dennis Kooren
“For years, Central States retirees—and retirees across the country—feared they would lose everything they worked so hard to save for retirement, and contributing employers were at risk of collapse, due to the multiemployer pension crisis,” said House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03). “Workers, retirees, businesses, and taxpayers called on Congress for a solution, and Congressional Democrats and President Biden delivered. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, we secured a historic victory that is keeping the promises made to retirees, saving businesses from going under, and shielding taxpayers from the even greater cost of a multiemployer pension collapse.”
“This is wonderful news for all Central States participants,” said Central States Pension Fund Executive Director Thomas C. Nyhan. “After more than a decade of work to save our Pension Fund, the voices of our active participants, retirees, local unions, and employers have been heard by the members of Congress and the Administration, to whom we are eternally grateful for their efforts in securing this legislative rescue.”
The Central States Pension Fund administers the retirement benefits of more than 350,000 Americans with more than 1,000 employers contributing to the plan. The multiemployer pension crisis threatened to strip workers and retirees of the pensions they earned over a lifetime of work and jeopardized contributing employers and businesses.
In response, the American Rescue Plan Act created a Special Financial Assistance (SFA) Program to avert the immediate crisis threatening the retirement security of American workers, retirees, and their families. Under this relief, the retirement benefits of the Central States Pension Fund’s participants will be saved and protected for years to come.
To date, the PBGC Corporation has approved 37 applications for relief for pension plans that were either already insolvent or projected to run out of money in the near future. This relief has saved over 550,000 pensions and protected nearly 2,000 employers.
To learn more about the how the American Rescue Plan Act is saving retirees’ hard-earned pensions and protecting businesses, click here.
To learn what businesses and organizations are saying about this relief, click here.
To learn more about how the cost of rescuing the multi-employer pension system saved the American taxpayers money compared to doing nothing and letting troubled plans fail, click here.
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