BOSTON — The Biden-Harris administration and congressional Democrats saved the pensions of more than a million union members, many of which could have become insolvent in the coming year, according to a new report out of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s office.

Titled “Promises Made, Promises Kept,” the report explains how system shockwaves that started with the 2008 financial crisis were compounded by corporate bankruptcies, congressional inaction, and fund mismanagement, and were putting multiemployer pension plans at risk of drastic benefits cuts.

“The workers covered by these plans were not at fault, but if these plans had failed, 1.3 million union members could have seen their benefits slashed by up to 98%,” the report reads.

The problem became apparent in 2017, according to the report, but wouldn’t be addressed until 2021 — after former President Donald Trump left office and the Democratic Party gained the majority in the U.S. Senate.

“After giant hedge funds and big banks took down our economy and put pension funds at risk, Democrats stepped up to protect our union workers, ” Warren, D-Mass., told the Herald. “I fought hard alongside the Biden-Harris administration to ensure Massachusetts Teamsters and other union workers could continue to count on the retirement funds they earned.”

According to the report, the problem actually started with the housing collapse in 2008, when many pension funds were heavily invested in “junk bonds and mortgage bonds.”

One such plan, Central States Pension Fund, which held the retirement funds of more than 600,000 Teamsters members, lost over $11 billion as a result of the financial crisis, dropping 42% in just 15 months.

By 2018, upwards of 15% of multiemployer pension plans were “likely to become insolvent by 2037 and run out of funds from which to pay benefits owed to participants.”

“Workers with insolvent MPPs were likely to see substantially slashed pension benefits. As a result, roughly 2 million union workers in more than 200 MPPs were at risk of not receiving their full benefits needed to support themselves and families in retirement,” the report states.

Ohio’s U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown introduced a bill, the Butch Lewis Act of 2017, that aimed to shore up those funds, but it stalled in committee.

In the meantime the problem remained, and by 2021, amid the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, “the threat to workers’ pensions had grown. At the time, approximately 1.3 million participants were in MPPs on the brink of insolvency, jeopardizing as much as 98% of their pension income” by 2025.

The problem was solved, Warren’s report says, with the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act, which included Brown’s 2017 bill, and which only came about through the actions of Democratic lawmakers in Congress and the Biden-Harris Administration.

“The law to save union pensions was passed despite the opposition of every single Republican member of Congress, and with Vice President Harris casting the the tie-breaking vote,” the report states.

Because of ARPA, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation insuring the plans was shored up “for at least 20 years,” and the potentially insolvent pensions are now secured through 2051, the report states.

This includes pensions covering “640,332 participants from the transportation industry, 61,474 from theconstruction industry, 50,238 from the entertainment industry, 445 from the fishing industry, 5,248 from the hospitality industry, 245,897 from the manufacturing industry, 163,414 from the printing industry, and 204,170 from the service industry,” and “over 35,000 union workers and retirees living in Massachusetts.”

A spokesperson for Republican John Deaton, who is running against Warren in the 2024 election, said that Warren’s report fails to mention the families she hasn’t helped.

“For every dollar that Sen. Warren claims to have invested helping special interest groups who have endorsed her campaign, she has cost Massachusetts households two dollars through higher prices caused by inflation. Families in the Commonwealth in total have experienced $50 billion in higher costs because of Warren’s reckless spending. John Deaton will not cater to any special interest group, Republican or Democrat, and will focus instead on lowering prices for middle class families while lifting up the poor and working class,” the spokesperson said.

Warren’s report comes after the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union leadership declined to make a presidential endorsement this election cycle, despite their long-running tradition of doing so.

A spokesperson for the Senator’s campaign noted that, while the national union chose to stay out of politics this cycle, the locals have gotten behind her reelection efforts.

“Teamster locals 25 and 122 have endorsed Elizabeth Warren for reelection,” they said.

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