Multiemployer Plan Infusion Revives Pension Insurer’s Finances

The federal government’s private-sector pension insurer ended fiscal year 2021 in a surplus for the first time in 20 years, due in large part to a $94 billion bailout package President Joe Biden signed into law earlier this year.

Multiemployer and single-employer insurance programs the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation operates to cover more than 33 million U.S. workers ended the fiscal year up a combined $31.4 billion, according to the independent agency’s end-of-year fiscal report.

The agency faced a $63.7 billion deficit in its multiemployer insurance program alone last fiscal year—the product of a wave of plans that declared ...