U.S. Department of Labor Restores Over $2.5 Billion To Employee Benefit Plans and Participants

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) today released its program results for Fiscal Year 2019. EBSA’s enforcement and benefit advisor programs recovered over $2.5 billion in payments to plans, participants and beneficiaries.

EBSA’s enforcement program reported over $2 billion in recoveries from its investigations. Under its Terminated Vested Participant Project, EBSA helped participants collect nearly $1.5 billion in retirement benefits owed to them in the form of lump sum payments, present value of lifetime annuity payments and interest. EBSA’s criminal investigations led to the indictment of 76 individuals – including plan officials, corporate officers, and service providers – for offenses related to employee benefit plans.

The Office of Outreach, Education and Assistance’s benefit advisors returned $510 million to workers and their families through its informal complaint resolution process. The Agency’s benefits advisors provided informal assistance to more than 166,000 individuals, many of whom were seeking assistance relating to benefits from retirement, health, and other employee benefit plans. EBSA benefits advisors also take questions from and provide assistance to employers, plan sponsors, service providers and others to help them understand their duties and obligations under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. 

EBSA also conducts outreach to educate the public about employee benefits laws.  Benefits advisors and other agency staff provided 1,788 outreach events in FY 2019. EBSA conducted 325 compliance assistance outreach events and 844 information sessions for dislocated workers across the country.

FY 2019 saw over 3.1 million visitors to EBSA’s website, where individuals can access information about laws governing employee benefit plans. EBSA also distributed 376,991 publications in that fiscal year.

EBSA continued to see large impacts in the termination of abandoned plans through the Abandoned Plan Program. In FY 2019, 661 plans made distributions totaling $33.2 million to participants under the program. In addition, EBSA continued to reach out to plan fiduciaries and others to participate in the Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program (VFCP), and Delinquent Filer Voluntary Compliance Program to encourage the correction of ERISA violations.  These programs provide incentives for fiduciaries and others to self-correct by reducing or eliminating potential penalties and/or avoiding other adverse consequences. In FY 2019, EBSA received over 20,000 delinquent filings and 1,600 applications for the VFCP. VFCP corrections totaled $14.6 million during FY 2019.

The fact sheet is available on EBSA’s website at https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/EBSA/about-ebsa/our-activities/resource-center/fact-sheets/ebsa-monetary-results.pdf

The Department of Labor’s mission is to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the U.S.; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights.