The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation—the government organization that insures private pension plans—announced this month that its deficit grew to $36 billion, but some industry groups have taken issue with that number, saying it is artificially inflated.

The PBGC has been in trouble since the Great Recession hit. Add artificially low interest rates, a volatile stock market and the many corporations filing for bankruptcy and it has been the perfect storm for the PBGC.

Josh Gotbaum, director of the PBGC, said in the agency's 2013 annual report that its premiums are "both too inflexible—so that some plans are unfairly paying for the risks of others—and too low to cover PBGC's benefit guarantee levels."

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