Why Taft-Hartley funds need demographic insights

The generational composition of the labor workforce has crossed a significant threshold. A 2025 study found that Generation (Gen) Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) now outnumbers Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) in the workforce, and Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) and Gen Z together represent a larger proportion of workers than any other generational cohort.¹ The study also noted that most benefits programs have historically been designed with Baby Boomers and Gen X in mind — a structural misalignment that grows more consequential with each passing year.¹

Additionally, another study found substantial, persistent disparities in benefit access across demographic groups, including meaningful gaps between men and women. Critically, the research linked access to sponsored benefits to higher financial security and lower turnover — outcomes that matter directly to union members and the funds built to serve them. This evidence reinforces the argument that understanding who is — and who is not — accessing available benefits is as important as knowing what benefits are offered.

For multiemployer plans, this generational shift translates directly into changing patterns of health care utilization, retirement readiness and benefit preferences that must be understood to be managed.

At the same time, Taft-Hartley funds are navigating an environment of persistent financial pressure. According to Milliman's 2025 Multiemployer Health and Welfare Fund Statistics Report, the average plan could cover approximately 16 months of benefits and expenses with its net assets — an improvement from prior years, driven in part by a strong average investment return of 9.8% in 2023.³ While this improvement is encouraging, it underscores how sensitive fund sustainability is to the interplay of membership demographics, utilization trends and contribution levels. Demographic data can be helpful as a core input into actuarial modeling and long-term fund health.

Aging membership cohorts alongside an influx of younger workers can be a challenge for plan sponsors. The convergence of these dynamics requires consultants and trustees to think in population segments. A fund serving a workforce skewed toward older, longer-tenured members will have materially different health care cost drivers than one with a rapidly growing cohort of younger members, and a benefits strategy calibrated to the former will systematically underperform for the latter.

Here are 4 ways to help ensure plan sponsors are designing benefits that make sense for their own unique member populations:

Before entering negotiations or recommending plan design changes, consider building a structured snapshot of the membership population — covering age distribution, gender, tenure, family status, geographic concentration and health risk profile. This baseline transforms abstract benefit discussions into data-grounded decisions and ensures that what is negotiated reflects what members actually need — not what was needed 5 years ago.

A single aggregate view of membership masks the divergent needs of specific cohorts. Segmenting the population — younger workers entering the trades, mid-career members with growing families and workers approaching retirement — reveals where current benefit offerings are well-matched and where meaningful gaps exist. Each segment carries different utilization patterns, financial pressures and benefit expectations that a one-size-fits-all strategy will consistently underserve.

Claims and utilization data become far more actionable when layered against demographic breakdowns. Plan sponsors may want to regularly analyze which member segments are accessing which benefits, where uptake is low despite demonstrated need, and where high utilization is driving disproportionate cost. This analysis often reveals structural barriers — whether in plan design, communication or accessibility — that demographic data alone cannot surface.

Benefits strategies that account only for today's membership will be wrong about tomorrow's costs. Labor consultants and plan sponsors may want to work with actuarial partners to project how demographic shifts — aging cohorts, membership growth or contraction, changes in family unit composition — will affect contribution income and benefit expenditures over a 5- to 10-year horizon. Plan sponsors that understand their future population can negotiate contribution structures and make reserve decisions proactively rather than reactively.

The decisions made at the bargaining table and in boardrooms today will determine whether Taft-Hartley funds remain financially sound and meaningfully valuable to members for years to come. Demographic data is not a peripheral consideration; it is the foundation upon which sustainable, equitable and effective benefits strategies are built. By investing in a rigorous understanding of who members are, what they need and how those needs will evolve, labor consultants and plan sponsors can act with greater confidence, steward fund assets more responsibly and deliver the quality of coverage.