Cite as: 508 U. S. 602 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
losing service credit toward pension benefits. See 29 CFR § 2530.210(c)(1) (1991); accord, Washington Star Co. v. International Typographical Union Negotiated Pension Plan, 582 F. Supp. 301, 304 (DC 1983).
Since the enactment of ERISA in 1974, the Plan has been subject to the provisions of the statute as a "defined benefit plan." Such a plan is one that does not qualify as an " 'individual account plan' or 'defined contribution plan,' " which provide, among other things, for an individual account for each covered employee and for benefits based solely upon the amount contributed to the covered employee's account. See 29 U. S. C. §§ 1002(35), 1002(34), 1002(7). Concrete Pipe has not challenged the determination that the Plan falls within the statutory definition of defined benefit plan, and no issue as to that is before the Court.
A
We have canvassed the history of ERISA and the MPPAA before. See Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation v. R. A. Gray & Co., supra; Connolly v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, supra. ERISA was designed "to ensure that employees and their beneficiaries would not be deprived of anticipated retirement benefits by the termination of pension plans before sufficient funds have been accumulated in [them]. . . . Congress wanted to guarantee that if a worker has been promised a defined pension benefit upon retirement—and if he has fulfilled whatever conditions are required to obtain a vested benefit—he will actually receive it." Id., at 214 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). As enacted in 1974, ERISA created the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) to administer and enforce a pension plan termination insurance program, to which contributors to both single-member and multiemployer plans were required to pay insurance premiums. 29 U. S. C. §§ 1302(a), 1306 (1988 ed. and Supp. III). Under the terms of the statute as originally enacted, the guarantee of basic
607
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