Hatch, Brown Announce Hearing to Examine Financial State of America’s Pension Insurer

WASHINGTON – Joint Select Committee on the Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans Co-Chairmen Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) today announced they will convene a hearing on Thursday, May 17, 2018, to examine the state of the Pensions Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC). The hearing will take place at 10 a.m. in Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 215.

“The PBGC insures the benefits of millions of Americans enrolled in multiemployer pension plans,” Hatch said. “Understanding the challenges the PBGC is facing is critical to evaluating the overall health of our multiemployer pension system. PBGC Executive Director Thomas Reeder will provide insight about the agency’s finances, which will help guide the committee’s work moving forward.”

“With more than 100 multiemployer pension plans on the brink of failure, 1.3 million workers and retirees across the country are counting on this committee to solve this crisis,” said Brown. “As this committee works toward a bipartisan solution, this hearing will help us better understand how to fix the system, so we can protect the benefits workers have earned after a lifetime of hard work and the small businesses that could end up on the hook for pension liabilities they can’t afford to pay. We have a responsibility to get this done before it is too late.”

The witness at Thursday’s hearing will be:

• Thomas Reeder, Executive Director of the PBGC

Background: The PBGC is an independent U.S. agency that insures benefits for more than 40 million people in defined benefit pension plans provided by private employers, with roughly 25 percent of those people in multiemployer plans.

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