I guess "Private Pensions are safe for 96.5% of retirees" doesn't make a "good" headline? In other news, thousands of commercial airplanes took off and landed safely today!
-ERD50
Not an argument about the relative number of employees, but still a concern. Actually 30 million in single employer plans versus 10 million in multi employer plans.
The single-employer program protects 30 million workers and retirees in 22,000 pension plans. The multiemployer program protects 10 million workers and retirees in 1,400 pension plans.
As for the "safe" part... that may not be correct for every "single employer" plan. The laws regarding this guarantee are quite complex, and the protections are not necessarily 100%. This wiki article may be a difficult read, but explains the guarantees are based on the individual plan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pension_Benefit_Guaranty_Corporation
Some info on the single payer plans...
In fiscal year 2018 PBGC added 58 more failed single-employer plans, bringing its inventory to 4,919 plans, and paid $5.8 billion in benefits to 861,000 retirees in those plans.
For those who aren't sure, the PBGC, has a link that defines the guaranty, based of the serial number of each plan. Not every guaranty has the same criterion.
https://www.pbgc.gov/search-insured-plans
The "percent funded" is a good key to determining the longer term viability of each individual plan. While my DIL has an Illinois State plan and is not covered by the PBGC, Son's smaller plan was only funded by 70% a few years before he retired, the company made that up to 100% in his last year of work.
The devil will be in the details... what is safe today, could change during the retirement period.
One of the situations that I came across when negotiating with MetLife on another matter, was their failure to pay some 30,000 members of pension plans they had guaranteed. Some time ago, but a case that has prompted some changes in the PBGC rules.
In any case, it costs nothing to check on a plan's viability, considering the number of years one anticipates receiving benefits.