Biden releasing $36B to aid union workers' pensions

US President Joe Biden announced the infusion of nearly $36 billion to shore up a financially troubled union pension plan, preventing severe cuts to the retirement incomes of about 350,000 Teamster workers and retirees across the United States.

Joe Biden, U.S. President said "Today, my administration is announcing that 36 billion of that money was going to going to prevent drastic cuts of workers, hard earned pension benefits, cuts that have been scheduled to occur within the next few years.

It's not going to happen. The cuts are not going to occur. Many union retirement plans have experienced financial pressure because of underfunding and other issues. Without the federal assistance, Teamster members could have seen their benefits reduced by an average of 60% starting within a couple of years. Before Thursday, the program had awarded aid to 36 troubled pension plans, but none of those had received more than about $1.2 billion.