A looming retirement crisis is facing the U.S. taxpayer that will become an economic tsunami if Congress doesn't act. The pensions of 1.3 million workers in certain multiemployer pension plans and the federal government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) are set to collapse. Only Congress can prevent this from cascading throughout the economy, to taxpayers and into healthy pension plans and their employers.
How things spiraled into this crisis is complicated, but important to understand. Some say it's a multiemployer problem, but it's more than that, and the U.S. taxpayer is ultimately on the hook. The broad reasons for this crisis and the consequences of failure came about not because of financial mismanagement or irresponsible actions of the management and labor trustees of these plans, but because of government actions and inaction.
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