Resolution No. 21: Securing Our Retirement, Health Care and Social Safety Net

WHEREAS, it is a guiding principle of the United Steelworkers and advanced societies that a lifetime of work earns a worker the right to a secure, sustainable retirement; and

WHEREAS, the United Steelworkers has for its entire history been engaged in the effort to provide our members with dignity and security in retirement; and

WHEREAS, retirement security in the United States and Canada has traditionally been secured through a three-pronged approach of Social Security in the United States and the Canada Pension Plan in Canada, personal savings and employer sponsored pension plans; and

WHEREAS, fewer and fewer employers in the United States and Canada offer traditional defined benefit pension plans, and many employers have closed their defined benefit plans to new hires or frozen benefits for all employees, weakening retirement security in both nations; and

WHEREAS, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2023, only 11 percent of all private industry workers in the United States participate in defined benefit pension plans – including 58 percent of private industry union members and just 7 percent of their nonunion employees; and

WHEREAS, in the United States, 42 percent of private industry workers – more than 53 million people — don’t have access to a retirement plan of any kind, either a traditional defined benefit or a defined-contribution plan; and

WHEREAS, the vast majority of defined contributions plans provide employer “matching” contributions, which make no employer contribution unless the employee contributes funds to the plan, and in 2024, 37 million private industry workers in the United States were unable to afford or chose not to make such contributions and thus received no benefit; and

WHEREAS, the union successfully worked in coalition with the American labor movement and the Biden Administration to pass the Butch Lewis Act as part of the American Rescue Plan in 2021, which will ensure roughly 2 million workers’ and retirees’ pension plans remain solvent and will be able to pay the full benefits that workers have earned – including 120,000 USW members and retirees; and

WHEREAS, an increasing number of pension plans in the United States have engaged in “derisking” or the purchase of annuity contracts from private sector insurance carriers, which transfer the assets and promised benefits of hundreds of thousands of workers away from the pension plans and protection by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC); and

WHEREAS, the 2024 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report shows that Social Security is able to pay full benefits until 2033, after which continuing program income will be sufficient to pay 79 percent of scheduled benefits, and the Medicare Hospital Trust Fund is able to pay full benefits until 2036 and the Supplemental Medical Insurance Trust Fund is financed into the indefinite future; and

WHEREAS, 71 million people in the United States received Social Security benefits in 2023, moving 28 million people above the Supplemental Poverty Level; and

WHEREAS, the 118^th Congress and the 46^th President passed and signed H.R. 82 the Social Security Fairness Act, which eliminated the Windfall Elimination Provisions and Government Pension Offset (WEP/GPO), ensuring over 2.7 million public sector workers do not have their social security benefits unnecessarily reduced; and

WHEREAS, in 2023, 67 million people in the United States were covered by Medicare, the publicly funded federal health insurance program, and the Medicare Prescription Drug pricing program enacted as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will save Medicare and participants billions of dollars through reduced insulin costs, a yearly cap on out-of-pocket drug costs and Medicare price negotiation with drug makers; and

WHEREAS, in the United States, the number of uninsured reached historic lows in 2023 of 25 million and an uninsured rate of 9.5 percent due to state-provided continuous Medicaid enrollment and enhanced subsidies in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces – yet states have begun disenrolling people from Medicaid and the ACA enhanced Marketplace subsidies will expire after 2025 unless Congress acts, threatening to increase the number of uninsured by an average of 3.8 million per year from 2026 to 2034 according to the Congressional Budget Office; and

WHEREAS, Children account for more than four in ten (43 percent) of all Medicaid enrollees, and the elderly and people with disabilities account for about one in four enrollees; and

WHEREAS, access to affordable child care is a growing problem for workers in both nations; in the United States, 51 million workers are parents of children under age 18; according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 61 percent of parents lack any substantive form of child care; and the Federal Reserve reports that the median individual with a child under age 13 who pays for child care spent $867 per month, causing many to stay home or reduce hours and pushing many workers into poverty; and

WHEREAS, everyone should have a right to health care, and dignity in retirement to meet their personal needs after a lifetime of work, and that retirement savings vehicles should be simple, effective, and create certainty for families.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that:

1. We commend our local unions and staff who take a stand to defend and improve the defined benefit pension plans that we have in place.
2. In USW bargaining units whose members are not covered by a defined benefit pension plan, local unions should encourage the employers to adopt a defined benefit pension plan or USW-affiliated multi-employer pension plan.
3. In the United States, the union will continue to work to advance legislation that will improve access to defined benefit pension plans and strengthen oversight of plan annuity purchases. The USW commends the Presidential and Congressional action in 2021 to pass and sign into law the Butch Lewis Act, protecting union workers and retirees.
4. The USW will press employers which resist adoption of defined benefit pension plans to establish defined contribution plans which provide employer contributions not subject to “matching” requirements, are higher for older workers to reflect their approaching retirement, and include long-term disability protection.
5. The USW will support securing and strengthening the Social Security system by eliminating the cap on Social Security taxes – just as Congress did for Medicare in 1994 – so all pay their fair share to secure the program’s solvency. Our union rejects efforts to privatize the system, reduce staffing, raise the retirement age, and means test or otherwise undermine benefits.
6. The USW will join allied organizations and millions of Americans to support securing and strengthening Medicare by rejecting efforts to privatize Medicare, by turning it into a voucher program forcing those over 65 to buy health insurance in the private market, or otherwise eliminate or undermine the health insurance program.
7. The USW will also join allied organizations and millions of Americans to resist any efforts to cut back or weaken the ACA or Medicare Prescription Drug pricing program and will support renewal of continuous Medicaid enrollment and renewal of ACA Marketplace subsidies, renewal and expansion of child care tax credits and other social safety net programs.