Multiemployer pension plan insolvencies will obviously be harmful to the participants and beneficiaries of the plans in question, but the loss of the significant economic momentum provided by retirees spending their pension plan assets could also harm the wider economy.
Favorable equity market and interest rate forces resulted in a 2% increase in the average U.S. pension plan funded status during April.
The financial crisis resulted in severe declines in the funded status of most U.S. corporate pension funds resulting in almost universal pension deficits; companies’ various responses to the challenge offer some food for thought.
Adjustments made to the corporate tax rate, repatriation of offshore cash and interest rate deductibility all are likely to have immediate effects on the credit markets—and by extension, on institutional investors’ fixed-income portfolios.
Under the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, the bicameral committee is charged with improving the solvency of multiemployer pension plans and the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation.