Posted on 12/08/2022 7:55:26 AM PST by chuckee
President Joe Biden on Thursday is announcing the infusion of nearly $36 billion to shore up a financially troubled union pension plan, preventing severe cuts to the retirement incomes of more than 350,000 Teamster workers and retirees across the United States.
The money for the Central States Pension Fund is the largest amount of federal aid provided for a pension plan, the Biden administration said, and comes from the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that he signed into law in 2021.
Many union retirement plans have been under financial pressure because of underfunding and other issues. Without the federal assistance, Teamster members could have seen their benefits reduced by an average of 60% starting within a couple of years.
“Union workers and their families are finally able to breathe a huge sigh of relief, knowing that their hard-earned retirement savings have been rescued from steep cuts,” said Lisa Gomez, assistant labor secretary for employee benefits security.
Multiemployer pension funds are created by agreements between unions and companies and are partially insured by the federal government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The insurance program was on track to become insolvent in 2026, but the pandemic relief money is expected to keep it on firm footing through 2051.
Biden traveled to Ohio in July to highlight the final rules for the pension relief program. Before Thursday, the program had awarded aid to 36 troubled pension plans, but none of those had received more than about $1.2 billion.
The amount going to the Central States Pension Fund represents somewhere between one-third and one-half of the total estimated cost of the federal aid program.
The retirement plan has participants in almost every state, with the largest concentration in the Midwest. There are about 40,000 participants in both Michigan and Ohio, nearly 28,000 in Missouri, 25,000 in Illinois and about 22,000 each in Texas and Wisconsin, according to figures provided by the White House.
Trump was right - we don’t have a Constitution!
Can’t wait to see what Deep State has done/is doing for CalPERS and CalSTRS...
It’s good to have low friends in high places.
By which time PBGC will be solvent but Social Security will be bankrupt lofl.
This is an easy call to produce a bill in the 118th GOP Congress to claw back the remainder of the 1.9T. Another bill would restrict the remaining amounts that the states are sitting on, to line-item unfunded mandates in the next Omnibus bill, and tell Schuck to sit and spin on that in the Senate.
The peoples choice will never again win an election when the peoples money and future money is used against them.
Well, at least he didn’t do it a week before the last election.
Our Government is disgraceful, disgusting and dishonest.
I have a feeling this may be the tip of the iceberg of underfunded union pensions
I don’t think the President can spend money that wasn’t allocated by Congress.
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That was true until DJT was deposed.
Since the Constitution no longer applies and ‘justice’ only goes one way, like the brides our Glorious Leaders are fond of accepting, they can do what they want and the piss-ons can point and shout, as they are taxed and worked to death.
Crickets from the spineless Gomers Of Politics. Expect the same for the next two years, minimum.
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Hey, come on man, they’ve got big and fun parties to attend - all the important Democrats will be there too!
The hits keep coming
Less than 10 billion would complete the entire border wall.
I wonder how much they invested with Sam Bankfraud....
1. The “optimistic demographic projections” you describe are an issue in all defined-benefit retirement plans (even Social Security). Simply put, people are living far longer today that they were when they started contributing to the pension plans.
2. For the Teamsters, the demographic issue has been exacerbated by declining membership in the union over time — even as trucking jobs have grown considerably. Much of this is due to the deregulation of the industry in the early 1980s that changed the trucking business dramatically.
Other than longevity issue, the things should have been fully funded up front. Deferred finding just kicks the can down the road. Hoping for more members would also mean more funding.
Using future members to find existing liabilities is, by definition, a Ponzi scheme.
It’s really the members that are already retired that are the problem. They simply do not have the money or the current active membership to fund 100% of their commitment to them. Without the windfall from the taxpayer their benefit would be cut 60%. The way to resolve this going forward is to tell unions the Pension Benefit guaranty will not guarantee defined benefit pensions going forward, only defined contribution plans. When they negotiate new contracts they will have to negotiate them on the basis of the company funding a defined 401 K contribution plan. The investment risk is then with the Union member not the US taxpayer
“All the inflation is caused by PRICE GOUGING!”
I guess Zelensky’s gonna be looking for the union label.....smirk.
I still say Biden is cleaning out everything monetarily he can before the next Pres. election - he’s truly robbing every coffer he can again weakening our country.
Good one Liz!
Thx.
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