The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is offering financial assistance to two insolvent multiemployer pension plans in New York.
On Tuesday, agency officials announced they sent $108,100 to the Teamsters Local 531 Pension Plan in Brooklyn and $176,000 to the Local 976 International Longshoremen's Association Pension Fund in Manhattan. Both plans are insolvent.
The money is the initial installment of total commitments, until the last person is paid, that are estimated to be more than $14.9 million to the Teamsters plan and more than $9.8 million to the Longshoremen’s plan.
The PBGC sends financial assistance to insolvent multiemployer plans to pay benefits but does not assume responsibility for them, as it does with single-employer plans. Multiemployer benefits are capped at PBGC levels based on years of service and the rate at which benefits are earned.
In fiscal year 2013, the PBGC paid $89 million in financial assistance to 44 multiemployer pension plans.
