Biden Says 'Not A Single, Solitary Republican' Helped Him And Harris Save Workers' Pensions

Dave Jamieson
Fri, November 1, 2024

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.”

President Joe Biden speaks about his administration's support for unions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. 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.


Biden visits Philadelphia to tout American Rescue Plan funding to save service workers’ pensions

Kim Lyons
Sat, November 2, 2024 

President Joe Biden, center, gets his picture taken with supporters shortly after giving a speech at the United Steelworkers Headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (Steve Mellon/Pittsburgh Union Progress)

The Biden administration on Friday announced that looming cuts for United Food and Commercial Workers’ (UFCW) pensions across Pennsylvania have been averted, after receiving special funding from the American Rescue Plan Act.

President Joe Biden was in Philadelphia Friday to tout the $684.4 million that the UFCW Tri-State Plan, which covers more than 29,000 service industry workers, will receive from the Special Financial Assistance (SFA) program. The pension plan was projected to become insolvent in 2028, meaning reductions to the workers’ monthly pension benefits of 15%.

The SFA was enacted as part of the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill Biden signed in 2021. As of Nov. 1, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (PBGC) has approved $69.5 billion in SFA funds to pension plans that cover about 1.2 million workers, retirees, and beneficiaries, according to the White House.

John Dean of King of Prussia, a member of UFCW 1776 for 36 years, said Friday in Philadelphia that as shop steward for the union at the Acme market where he works he would get questions from members about the pension plan. “After going to a few meetings and gathering information, I had the answers, and they weren’t good,” Dean said.

He learned the pension plan was headed toward insolvency and saw little hope of a fix with Republicans controlling Congress and the White House. But after Biden was elected, and passed the American Rescue Plan in 2021, “and it was life changing for our members and their families. Thanks to the Biden Harris administration, our pension, which was on the verge of being insolvent by 2026 is now secure into the 2050s,” he said.

Biden reminded the gathering at the Sprinkler Fitters Local 692 in Northeast Philadelphia on Friday that the legislation that made the pension protection possible was named for the late Teamster Butch Lewis, who fought to protect union retirees’ benefits.



“Before the Butch Lewis Act became the law of the land, union workers and retirees faced cuts of up to 70% or more of the retirement benefits through no fault of their own,” Biden said. He noted that no Congressional Republicans had voted for the American Rescue Plan. “But now [union workers] know because of what we’ve done, we see the full amount of the pensions they worked hard for, and they’ll receive it.”

Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su told the Capital-Star in an interview that many of the affected supermarket workers are part of the sandwich generation taking care of children and parents. “These are, if not our own family members they are our friends and neighbors,” she said. “These are people that we see doing the hard work, and they make sure that we have food on our tables, and making sure they have their retirement is about ensuring they get food on theirs.”

During the stop in Philadelphia, Biden called out U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) who he said had “championed” the Butch Lewis Act.

“Workers are the backbone of our Commonwealth and thanks to the American Rescue Plan, tens of thousands of families can continue relying on their pensions without worrying that their plans may be cut,” Casey said in a statement. “I fought for this fix because I know how critical pensions are to the futures of thousands of Pennsylvania families, and how scary it was for those families to face the possibility of the rug being pulled out from underneath them.”

Biden makes historic visit to metro Detroit picket line to rally with striking auto workers

Biden said he was proud to be considered the “most pro-union president in history,” something he pushed during his brief reelection bid. He was the first sitting president to walk a picket line when he joined United Auto Workers in Michigan last year during their strike against the Big Three American auto companies.

According to the White House, Pennsylvania has the second-highest number of people who had their pensions saved under Biden, at 65,000. Michigan tops the list, at 80,000, and Wisconsin is third, at 33,000.

All three are key “Blue Wall” swing states that both presidential candidates have campaigned in relentlessly, and will continue to do so up until the eve of the election. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, will visit Allentown, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on Monday, and former President DOnald Trump, the GOP nominee, has rallies planned in Reading and Pittsburgh the same day.