Tuesday, March 16, 2021
We had pondered when this day would come. The doomsday scenario that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) would become insolvent in five to six years is now old history. (The new estimated time of PBGC insolvency is the mid-2040s.) Plan participants, the plans, employers, unions, and the PBGC had all been patiently waiting for relief—and they have apparently been rewarded with the relief they were seeking.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, signed by President Joe Biden on March 11, 2021, included the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act of 2021 (Pension Relief Act), which will provide special financial assistance, in a single lump-sum payment, to certain underfunded multiemployer defined benefit pension plans. The payment will, in theory, pay for all accrued benefits owed to retirees, without reduction, through the plan year ending in 2051, without any obligation to repay such funds. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the cost of this special financial assistance will exceed $86 billion, although such cost is not capped in the Pension Relief Act.