On the Dash:
- The White House asked Congress for $1 billion to restore pensions cut from former Delphi workers in 2009.
- The fix rides on a defense bill amendment and marks the administration’s first direct backing after nearly two decades.
- GM spun off Delphi in 1999, and the parts maker’s 2009 bankruptcy left salaried retirees’ pensions deeply cut.
The White House asked Congress for $1 billion to restore pensions for former Delphi workers whose benefits were cut during General Motors’ 2009 bankruptcy.
The request is part of a larger supplemental spending package that the Office of Management and Budget sent to Congress. The package also seeks money to rebuild New York’s Penn Station and fund federal construction projects in Washington.
The pension fix is structured as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. The funding still needs approval from the House and the Senate.
The move marks the first time the administration has backed a fix that retirees have sought for nearly two decades. The cuts affected just over 20,000 salaried retirees, some of whom lost as much as 70% of their benefits.
GM spun off Delphi as an independent parts supplier in 1999. Delphi filed for bankruptcy in 2005 and never recovered. When the plans were terminated in 2009, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation took them over. The agency pays benefits only up to a legal cap, which in 2009 was $54,000 a year for a worker retiring at 65. The outcome split the workforce. Three unions had secured a 1999 agreement that GM would top up their pensions if the plans failed. GM honored those top-ups during its own 2009 bankruptcy. Salaried and nonunion workers had no such guarantee and absorbed the full reduction.
Retirees have fought the gap ever since. The Delphi Salaried Retirees Association sued in 2009 but lost in the courts. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2022, which left Congress as the only path forward.
