A coalition of 31 different businesses have come together in a letter to urge the Joe Biden administration to take action on retirement security, describing it as “shakier than ever.” This is according to a letter signed by all of the companies and submitted to the White House by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC).
“We are writing to urge the Biden-Harris administration to create an inter-agency retirement security task force to ensure that this critical kitchen-table issue is not overlooked in the national economic recovery effort and beyond,” the letter begins.
With entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security facing financing shortfalls and the wide-scale disappearance of pension plans for younger workers having taken place, life expectancies and healthcare costs have continued to increase creating new risks to the potential for stability in retirement for new generations of Americans.
“Americans simply are not saving enough to cover the gap, with many ending up short of funds later in life,” the letter says. “Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research estimates that half of households — including three-quarters of low-income households — are at risk of not being able to maintain their standard of living in retirement. The Employee Benefit Research Institute estimates that the aggregate retirement deficit for all households aged 35 to 64, taking into account current Social Security retirement benefits, is $3.83 trillion.”
The issue of retirement security speaks to the core of inequalities that the Biden administration has promised to address elsewhere, the letter continues. Readiness for retirement is lower among women, people of color and low-income workers, the letter says. This was already true before the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic exacerbated the situation even further, it explains.
“While COVID-19 and the resulting recession have made it even harder for working Americans to achieve secure retirements, the challenge long predates the pandemic and, without your administration’s leadership, will remain after the current crisis passes,” it says. “Retirement security must be part of building back better,” invoking the slogan of the Biden-Harris presidential campaign.
The letter’s signatories include human resources processing company Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP), Prudential Financial, the The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA), the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS), the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), the National Council on Aging (NCOA) and many more.
Read the letter at the BPC website. RMD also recently presented a two-part Q&A with BPC Director of Economic Policy Shai Akabas on the potential for reverse mortgages to assist in the retirement aims of Americans. Read part one and part two.
