Assistance program
Pension Plan Termination Insurance
$79.4 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
- Assistance
- Insurance
- CFDA number
- 86.001
- What it does
- To encourage the continuation and maintenance of voluntary private pension plans for the benefit of their participants, to provide for the timely and uninterrupted payment of pension benefits to participants and beneficiaries in plans covered by the PBGC, and to maintain premiums charged by the PBGC at the lowest level consistent with carrying out its obligations.
- Who benefits
- All participants (and their beneficiaries) in covered single-employer pension plans may be potentially eligible for plan termination insurance payments. All covered multi-employer plans may be eligible for financial assistance needed to ensure payment of guaranteed benefits.
- Who applies
- Private businesses and organizations that maintain defined benefit plans and participants (and beneficiaries) in such plans.
- Authorized by
- Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), Title IV (Plan Termination Insurance), Public Law 93-406, as amended; Public Law 96-364; Multi-employer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980; Public Law 99-272; Single-Employer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1986; Pension Pr…
- Program site
- http://www.pbgc.gov . ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
How the money flows
Committed dollars by how this program's money is paid out.
Direct payments
$77.9B
98%
Loans
$1.6B
2%
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments