Union Pensions Could Fail Sooner Than Expected, Actuaries Say

Strict investment limits regulators have placed on financial assistance for failing multiemployer pension plans could result in lower returns, thrusting those plans back to the brink of insolvency sooner than expected.

The federal government’s private-sector pension insurer last week issued long-awaited rules governing how it would administer President Joe Biden‘s $94 billion bailout for union-brokered pension plans. Millions of workers’ retirement benefits have been threatened by more than 100 massively underfunded group plans that struggled to survive after a spate of economic downturns since 2001.

Special financial assistance was expected to forestall plan insolvency until at least 2051, but ...