WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate continued debate Friday on a proposal to ease companies' pension liability and grant major relief for airline and steel industries.
Key senators worked out the plan Thursday, an amendment to a House-passed bill, with a vote expected next week.
Under its terms, airlines and steel companies, some small businesses and a railway workers' union would be able to avoid making special payments required to shore up underfunded pension plans, the Washington Post reported.
Under the two-year relief plan, worth an estimated $16 billion, companies would be required to pay only 20 percent of the amount that would otherwise be due in the first year and 40 percent in the second year.
Funding of private pensions became a major issue in the wake of the stock market decline of 2000-02 and company bankruptcies. The government's pension insurance agency, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., went from a $9.7 billion surplus in the late 1990s to an $11.2 billion deficit last year.
