President Joe Biden reminded Pennsylvanians on Friday that he, Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats safeguarded more than 1 million people’s pensions without any help from the GOP.
Visiting a union hall in Philadelphia, Biden and local union leaders highlighted the American Rescue Plan of 2021 and how it funded union pension plans that were facing insolvency. The pensions of an estimated 1.2 million workers and retirees have been protected from cuts due to the legislation.
It was no accident that the event took place in Pennsylvania, perhaps the most critical of battleground states for Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, and for her opponent, former President Donald Trump. Democrats have worried about Harris’ strength with the kind of blue-collar union voters whose pensions were backstopped by the bill.
Biden made sure anyone listening knew that the pension rescue got no Republican backing when Democrats muscled it through Congress over three years ago as part of a larger, pandemic-era stimulus package. It passed on a party-line vote in the Senate, with Harris casting a tie-breaker at a critical juncture for the bill.
The president said the vote underscored the hyperpartisan nature of Congress these days.
“We used to have real differences in the Senate. But at least when the critical things, we ended up getting together. But not anymore,” Biden said. “This is a different deal we’re working with. Not a single, solitary Republican in the House or the Senate, not one, voted to help with the pensions. Not one single one.”
“It’s the way things have gotten,” he added. “It’s wrong.”
TING SHEN/AFP via Getty Images
He said that he and Harris “worked like hell” to include the pension rescue, known as the Butch Lewis Act, as part of the American Rescue Plan, and theorized that some Republicans would have voted for it but were afraid to cross party leaders.
“I believe a lot of those Republicans who voted no thought it was wrong. But they’re afraid to vote the right way,” Biden said.
The legislation provided an estimated $74 billion to $91 billion to shore up troubled multiemployer pension plans, which are funds that employers pay into under collective bargaining agreements. The funds can run into trouble when union membership declines over time, with more retirees drawing down benefits and fewer contributions going in on behalf of active workers.
The White House said Pennsylvania is home to an estimated 65,000 of the workers and retirees helped by the legislation. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a government-run entity that insures multiemployer pension plans, said Friday it had approved an application to pump $684 million into a plan covering 29,000 workers and retirees in the service sector.
The pension rescue became something of a campaign story after the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ executive board declined to make an endorsement in the presidential race. The Teamsters had the largest pension plan saved from cuts, and so the decision not to back Harris angered many members and labor allies
John Pishko, a retired Teamster from western Pennsylvania, spoke at the Philadelphia event about how the legislation helped save his retirement. He said he was set to lose 30% of his pension benefit, or about $1,000 a month, before Democrats stepped in with the bailout.
“That’s a pretty substantial cut to any working man,” Pishko said. “It was devastating.”
He had assumed he would “never” be able to stave off those cuts.
“It matters when you have a president and vice president who has your back,” he said.