PBGC deficit hits record high at $76.4 billion

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.'s deficit jumped nearly 24% in fiscal 2015 to a record high of $76.4 billion, the agency announced Tuesday.

The deficit in PBGC's insurance program for single-employer pension plans reached $24.1 billion, up from $19.3 billion in fiscal 2014, according to the agency's statement.

And for multiemployer pension plans, the deficit grew to $52.3 billion, compared with $42.4 billion the year before, PBGC said.

“The larger deficit is due to changes in interest factors that increased multiemployer program liabilities,” the agency said in the statement, adding that “the deficit increase was also driven by the identification of 17 additional multiemployer plans that are newly terminated or are projected to run out of money within the next 10 years.”

In total, PBGC said it paid $5.7 billion to more than 800,000 people in failed pension plans during fiscal 2015, similar to the year before.

According to the statement, PBGC paid $5.6 billion to 826,000 retirees in failed single-employer plans, and the agency took over 65 trusteed single-employer plans with more than 25,000 people.

PBGC also paid $103 million to assist 57 multiemployer pension plans covering the benefits of 54,000 participants, compared with $97 million the year before, according to the statement.

The agency's premium revenue decreased slightly to $3.7 billion in fiscal 2015, down from $3.9 billion in 2014.