C-19 Relief Includes Massive Bailout for Pensions

In a relief bill (conservatively) estimated to cost taxpayers $1.9 trillion, what’s a hundred billion or so between friends? That’s presumably the reasoning behind the decision to tuck a massive, no-strings-attached bailout for mismanaged pension funds into a bill ostensibly about coronavirus relief.

Included in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 is $86 billion for federal grants to cover the costs of insolvent multiemployer pension plans. In total, these funds are intended to bail out the roughly 130 multiemployer pension plans, covering 1.3 million American workers, that are in critical situations (about one tenth of all American multiemployer pension plans and workers).