Deposits have started appearing in the accounts of former truckers, iron workers and other retirees – restoring pension benefits that these people had earned after decades working back-breaking jobs, only to have them ripped away in retirement.
After a long, loud battle, the victory has come quietly. Over the past few months, deposits have started appearing in the accounts of former truckers, iron workers and other retirees across the country–restoring pension benefits that these people had earned after decades working some of America’s most back-breaking jobs, only to have them ripped away in their retirement years.
The Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act allows certain underfunded multiemployer plans to apply for taxpayer-funded financial assistance to stabilize their financial position and restore benefits previously cut. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the federal agency overseeing the program, has already approved over $7.4 billion in financial assistance for plans covering nearly 149,000 people.
By spring of 2014, Walden and other Ohio retirees had formed an Akron-area committee to protect pensions. But later that year, they “got ambushed,” Walden said, by a provision stuck into a massive omnibus spending bill, which allowed certain underfunded multiemployer plans to reduce current retirees’ benefits. That was particularly bad news for Walden, Lewis, and other retirees in the Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund, which was severely underfunded.
“ “I have not done a bill that has been more deeply based upon constituent outreach and engagement.” ” Meanwhile, more plans were cutting retirees’ benefits, and more retirees were joining the fight. Anthony Caporino, a warehouse worker, had his benefit slashed as the Road Carriers Local 707 plan became insolvent in 2017. He immediately began looking for work, but unable to find a job near his North Carolina home, he wound up taking a job in Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Laura, drove seven or eight hours to see each other on weekends.
Others assumed that no one was coming to the rescue. After decades as an iron worker, Bill DeVito of Berea, Ohio, retired in 2012. In 2017, his pension benefit was cut more than 40%. “Big banks and businesses get help,” he said. “But regular, blue-collar guys? Forget it.”
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