Pension Insurer Limits Seen to Sabotage Plans’ Economic Recovery

Employers and unions jointly operating some of the country’s most underfunded retirement plans are calling out the government’s private-sector pension insurer for setting limits on investments that they say could “sabotage” any possible economic rebound they would get from a massive Congressional rescue package.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation issued an interim final rule last month detailing how the agency would administer what has amounted to about a $94 billion bailout to prevent distressed multiemployer pension plans from going under. Millions of union workers’ retirement benefits have been threatened by a growing insolvency crisis facing labor-negotiated plans, and even the ...