Central States Pension Plan tells retirees the fund will be insolvent by January 2025
"Without your voice, there will be no legislation, and the fund will become insolvent," Nyhan said on the call.
He urged them to tell lawmakers about the impact the fund's failure would have on their lives.
Central States has suffered as many of the companies that pay into the fund for employees' retirement benefits have failed or left the fund. It annually pays out far more money in benefits to current retirees than it receives in retirement contributions from the current employers in the plan and from its investment holdings.
There also have been complaints about the handling of the fund, and the Government Accountability Office began an investigation of the pension fund.
Nyhan said the fund held
A proposal to avoid the insolvency by cutting retiree benefits - many by half - had been rejected by a
At the time the
Nyhan laid out changes in the fund's investment that he said would have been underway and would make its remaining lifespan more predictable. Central States is selling off much of its stock investments and other holdings that could generate higher returns and delay the insolvency but also carry the risk of losses that would push the fund into insolvency sooner.
It is investing the proceeds from those sales in low-risk bonds and cash-like holdings.
With that plan in place, Nyhan said, the fund will not have enough money at the start of 2025 to pay all of the benefits it would expect to owe retirees that year. Laws governing pension plans dictate that the fund at that point would be considered insolvent. It also would have to adjust benefits to spread out payments throughout that year.
And as of
Retirees celebrated the rejection of the controversial 2016 benefits cuts. Committees organized by retirees in many of the states where Central States has members have been lobbying
One proposal called the Butch Lewis Act has gotten support as a way to solve severely underfunded multi-employer pension plans, including Central States.
Nyhan said that members of Central States should remain flexible as
Pressing for "
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