Investment Gains Fuel Fifth Straight Year of Asset Growth in PBGC Pension Insurance Programs

Strong investment returns spurred the fifth straight year of growth for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s single-employer and multiemployer insurance programs, according to the agency’s annual report for the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2025.

The PBGC’s single-employer program reported a positive net position of $62.2 billion for the fiscal year, while the multiemployer program had a positive net position of $2.6 billion. The PBGC projected that its single-employer program will remain in a positive net financial position over the next decade and that the multiemployer program is likely to remain solvent for more than 40 years.

The single-employer program, which covers 18.4 million participants, had $152.3 billion in assets and $90 billion in liabilities for the fiscal year, which the PBGC attributed primarily to strong investment income and to premium income that exceeded new claims.

The multiemployer program, which covers 11.1 million participants, had assets of $4.9 billion and liabilities of $2.3 billion for the fiscal year, as its financial position improved by $516 million from fiscal 2024. The PBGC also attributed the improvement mainly to premium and investment income.

“As expected, the PBGC’s Annual Report and Projections Report provides good news for the financing of retirement income protections provided by both PBGC programs,” Bruce Cadenhead, Mercer’s global chief actuary and the vice president of the American Academy of Actuaries, wrote in an emailed statement. “The improvement in the status of the multiemployer system is particularly encouraging in that it makes it less likely that beneficiaries will face a future reduction in benefits.”

Cadenhead noted that the single-employer program’s increasing surplus was a result of the current, legally mandated premium structure and that it is way out of proportion to the system’s risk.

“From an actuarial perspective, the SE program’s surplus of $54.2 billion is clearly excessive, given that the overall level of underfunding across all insured single-employer plans has declined to only $85 billion as of 2024,” Cadenhead wrote. “The ongoing high level of premiums, which is projected to grow [the] PBGC’s surplus to more than $100 billion over the next 10 years, is a major factor in discouraging employers from continuing to offer benefits through defined benefit plans.”

The multiemployer program covers defined benefit pension plans that are maintained through at least one collective bargaining agreement between employers and at least one employee organization or union. The single-employer program covers defined benefit pension plans that, generally, are sponsored by a single employer.

The agency also reported that its Special Financial Assistance Program, which provides funding assistance to underfunded multiemployer defined benefit pension plans, received 88 applications requesting a total of $11 billion during fiscal 2025. It approved 47 applications requesting a total of $5.7 billion. The agency also reported that as of the end of the fiscal year, 22 applications requesting a total of $3.6 billion were under review, while 11 applications had been withdrawn and have not yet been resubmitted.