Two Paths Forward: Bringing Long-Term Sustainability to the Multiemployer Pension System
May 16, 2025
Prior to the 2021 passage of the American Rescue Plan Act, the multiemployer pension system was engulfed in crisis. Well over 100 plans faced inevitable insolvency, and more than a million participants were certain to lose their retirement benefits. Not only were plans failing, the government agency charged with backstopping the plans also faced insolvency. ARPA averted this catastrophe. Many people try to avoid using the word ‘bailout’ because of the negative reactions it generates, but the multiemployer pension section of ARPA is a bailout if there ever was one.