The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation released its Fiscal Year 2019 Annual Report and, you guessed it, it was “un-good” (a legal term I think).  The Multiemployer Insurance Program recorded a record-breaking deficit of $65.2 billion.  The PBGC warned that the Multiemployer fund will likely be insolvent by 2025, within 6 years from today.  Without the PBGC insurance fund, the pensions of 10.8 American workers will be at risk.  Read the Report Here.

Regular readers of this space may recall I have blogged about the impending crisis four times over the last five years.  “Teamsters’ Central States Pension Plan: A Saga Becomes a Nightmare?” (Aug. 16, 2016);  See “The Gift-Giving Season? Three “Game-Changing” Employment Developments Impacting Manufacturers” (Oct. 15, 2014); “Teamster Plan to Cut Pensions Presents Significant Issues for Manufacturers” (May 25, 2015); and “A Troubling Future Part One:  Teamsters’ Pension Rescue Plan” (Oct. 22, 2015).  While Congress has held hearings on legislation to attack the problem, time seems to be running out.  Some of the nation’s largest multi-employer pension plans are likely to become insolvent during the next decade.  Without a comprehensive fix, the pensions of hundreds of thousands of retired American workers will be slashed.  The resulting fallout will stress an already fragile social safety net.