Retirees’ Pensions Were Restored. Debate About It Hasn’t Died.

Cathy Green has never paid much attention to what goes on in Congress. But when she learned that a federal law would allow her pension to be cut by as much as 30 percent, she became alarmed. Ms. Green, of Lake Stevens, Wash., had claimed her benefit in 2015 after people in the plan were alerted that it might become insolvent. Earned from 20 years of work as an office manager for an insurance company, her pension was part of the Western States multiemployer plan — a type of defined...