OPCMIA members and other workers who participate in multiemployer pension plans had their retirement security restored by President Biden on July 6th.
At a ceremony in Cleveland, the president announced the final rule implementing the American Rescue Plan’s Special Financial Assistance program. Prior to enactment of this landmark bill last year, up to three million American workers were facing cuts to their retirement benefits. At the urging of our union and the entire building trades, President Biden and Democrats in Congress added special provisions into the American Rescue Plan to protect these workers by shoring up struggling multiemployer plans.
The final rules implementing this program, which reflect the input of unions and pension fund trustees, will:
- Enable more than 200 multiemployer pension plans facing the near-term possibility of bankruptcy to be solvent through at least 2051.
- Ensure that two million to three million workers and retirees in struggling multiemployer plans can count on their full pension benefits for the next three decades.
- Restore full benefits to more than 80,000 workers and retirees whose pensions were previously cut.
- Extend the solvency of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s multiemployer insurance program from 2026 to 2055.
As the White House noted, “this relief is the most substantial policy to strengthen the solvency of our nation’s multiemployer pensions since the enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) in 1974.”
This bold action once again demonstrates that elections matter, and that when we elect pro-worker leaders like President Biden, we improve our own lives. Every current OPCMIA retiree — and every future OPCMIA retiree — owes their retirement security to President Biden and Democrats in Congress.
