American Federation Of Musicians And Employers' Pension Fund Applies To Treasury A 2nd Time To Prevent Insolvency, Reduce Benefits

Today, the American Federation of Musicians and Employers' Pension Fund - a multiemployer pension plan - informed participants that the Plan has applied to the U.S. Treasury Department a second time to reduce earned benefits under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act (MPRA).

The Plan is currently in "critical and declining" status, which means it is projected to run out of money to pay benefits (or become "insolvent") within 20 years. Under MPRA, if a Plan is in "critical and declining" status, the Trustees can apply to Treasury for approval to reduce participants' benefits by an amount sufficient for the Plan to avoid insolvency. If approved, the benefit reductions would go into effect on January 1, 2022.

The Plan had submitted its first MPRA application in December 2019. In August 2020, the Treasury Department denied that application for technical reasons related to two actuarial assumptions used in the application.

View the communication that was sent to the Plan's participants here. Additional information is available here. A description of the different components of the benefit reduction is also available here.

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