WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden on Thursday introduced a federal bailout for a pension fund largely benefiting Teamster employees and retirees, saying that cuts to these pension advantages that have been scheduled to happen throughout the subsequent few years at the moment are “not going to occur.”
“Because of at this time’s announcement, tens of 1000’s of union retirees and employees in states like Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, can go to mattress tonight figuring out their pension they labored so rattling onerous for goes to be there for them after they want it,” Biden stated.
The $36 billion for the Central States Pension Fund will stop advantages from being minimize greater than in half for greater than 350,000 truck drivers, warehouse employees, development employees and others, in accordance with the White Home.
The most recent
- The bailout was made potential by the American Rescue Plan Act, the $1.9 trillion package passed last year in response to the pandemic.
- Financially struggling multiemployer pension plans can apply to the Pension Profit Warranty Company for help.
- Earlier than the act handed, greater than 200 pension plans have been on tempo to change into bancrupt within the close to time period, in accordance with the White Home. Now, these plans are projected to stay solvent by at the very least 2051.
- The $36 billion for the Central Pension Fund is the most important enhance from this system, and the biggest ever federal monetary help for troubled pension funds, in accordance with the White Home.
Response to the pension fund announcement
Teamster employees and retirees joined Biden and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh at a White Home occasion Thursday asserting the help.
Kenneth Stribling, president of the Nationwide United Committee to Defend Pensions, praised Biden , saying the president had “promised that he would shield our rights to a dignified retirement and the advantages we earn by auto by our life onerous or by our lifetime of hard-earned work and sacrifice.”
Stribling famous that he had made a promise to his late spouse, Beverly, to assist discover a resolution to guard pensions.
“I do know she’s wanting down on me, so I simply need you to know sweetheart, I fulfilled your promise. I didn’t stop,” Stribling stated.
“We discovered an answer with this man right here,” Stribling added earlier than introducing the president for his remarks.
Teamsters Common President Sean M. O’Brien stated in a press release that he’s glad to “see elected officers rise up for working households for as soon as.”
“This is a matter of equity — of this nation retaining its phrase to hardworking, trustworthy individuals who did every thing they have been imagined to do in life,” O’Brien stated .
Biden has stated he’s purpose is to be “essentially the most pro-union president” in U.S. historical past. He held the primary public occasion of his presidential marketing campaign at a Teamsters Corridor in Pittsburgh in 2019.
Critics, like George Mason College’s Charles Blahous, say the bailouts encourage “extra of the irresponsible habits that bought pensions into hassle within the first place.”
Who’s being helped?
Most states have employees or retires anticipated to learn. The states with essentially the most beneficiaries are:
- Michigan: 40,300
- Ohio: 39,900
- Missouri: 27,800
- Illinois: 25,000
- Texas: 22,500
- Wisconsin: 21,900
- Indiana: 19,600
- Minnesota: 19,300
- Florida: 18,700
- Tennessee: 14,200
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