[Senate Hearing 117-393]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                     S. Hrg. 117-393

                  RISE AND SHINE: IMPROVING RETIREMENT
                         AND ENHANCING SAVINGS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
                          LABOR, AND PENSIONS

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                                   ON

          EXAMINING IMPROVING RETIREMENT AND ENHANCING SAVINGS

                               __________

                             MARCH 29, 2022

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 
                                Pensions
                                
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                                


        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
                               __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
48-904 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
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          COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

                    PATTY MURRAY, Washington, Chair
BERNIE SANDERS (I), Vermont          RICHARD BURR, North Carolina, 
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania       Ranking Member
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin             RAND PAUL, M.D., Kentucky
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut   SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
TIM KAINE, Virginia                  BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
TINA SMITH, Minnesota                MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  ROGER MARSHALL, M.D., Kansas
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
JOHN HICKENLOOPER, Colorado          MITT ROMNEY, Utah
                                     TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama
                                     JERRY MORAN, Kansas

                     Evan T. Schatz, Staff Director
               David P. Cleary, Republican Staff Director
                  John Righter, Deputy Staff Director


                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                               STATEMENTS

                        TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2022

                                                                   Page

                           Committee Members

Murray, Hon. Patty, Chair, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 
  and Pensions, Opening statement................................     1
Burr, Hon. Richard, Ranking Member, a U.S. Senator from the State 
  of North Carolina, Opening statement...........................     3

                               Witnesses

Koumantaros, Petros, Managing Director and CEO, Spectrum Pension 
  Consultants; Co-Founder and Chairperson, GROUPIRA; Financial 
  Consultant, intellicents, Seattle, WA..........................     6
    Prepared statement...........................................     9
    Summary statement............................................    21
Rademacher, Ida, Vice President, Aspen Institute & Executive 
  Director, Financial Security Program, Washington, DC...........    21
    Prepared statement...........................................    24
    Summary statement............................................    36
Hounsell, Cindy, President and Founder, Women's Institute for a 
  Secure Retirement (WISER), Washington, DC......................    37
    Prepared statement...........................................    38
    Summary statement............................................    43
Chittenden, Doug, Head of Client Relationships, Teachers 
  Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA), Charlotte, 
  NC.............................................................    44
    Prepared statement...........................................    46
    Summary statement............................................    53

 
                  RISE AND SHINE: IMPROVING RETIREMENT.
                         AND ENHANCING SAVINGS

                              ----------                              


                        Tuesday, March 29, 2022

                                       U.S. Senate,
       Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in 
room 106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Patty Murray, 
Chair of the Committee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Murray [presiding], Casey, Baldwin, 
Murphy, Smith, Rosen, Hickenlooper, Burr, and Braun.

                  OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURRAY

    The Chair. Good morning. The Senate Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee will please come to order. Today 
we are having a hearing on how we can strengthen people's 
finances and improve their retirement security. I will have an 
opening statement and then we will introduce our witnesses. 
After the witnesses give their testimony, Senators will each 
have 5 minutes for a round of questions.
    We are again unable to have the hearing fully opened to the 
public or media for in-person attendance today. Live video is 
available on our Committee website at help.senate.gov. And if 
anyone is in need of accommodations, including closed 
captioning, reach out to the Committee or the Office of 
Congressional Accessibility Services. The COVID-19 pandemic 
upended our economy, and with it, the financial security of 
people across the country.
    I have heard from families in Washington State who are 
forced to raid savings meant for their futures just to make 
ends meet, savings for their kids' college fund, a down payment 
on a house, or for their retirement. And that is not even the 
half of it. Many people across the country have never even had 
to access--had never even had access to a retirement plan and 
never even been paid enough to make ends meet, let alone save 
for their future. COVID-19 was exactly the kind of crisis 
millions of families simply could not afford.
    That is why we worked in a bipartisan way in the CARES Act 
to give people more flexibility in managing their retirement 
resources and making ends meet during this crisis. It is why I 
worked in the American Rescue Plan to save workers and retirees 
from having the benefits they rely on slashed.
    It is why Ranking Member Burr, and I are now working to 
pull together bipartisan ideas in this space and move a 
retirement legislative package later this spring. I hope our 
discussion today will inform and improve these efforts, and our 
Democratic and Republican colleagues will continue to bring 
forward ideas over the next few weeks so we can build a good 
bipartisan package that helps workers, retirees, and families 
because it is painfully clear we need to do more to strengthen 
people's emergency savings and retirement security.
    When it comes to emergencies, financial experts say 
families with low incomes really need enough emergency savings 
to get through 6 weeks. Before this pandemic started, almost 
two in five Americans would struggle to get $400 in an 
emergency. We need to give workers and businesses tools that 
make it easier for families to put money away for a rainy day 
so that sudden expenses don't upend their lives in ways that 
undermine their finances for years to come.
    When it comes to our retirement system, it is clear 
retirement plans right now just aren't working for most 
Americans, when too many workers don't have access to one, when 
one in nine of those who do have access to a retirement plan do 
not participate in it, when one in six don't think their 
retirement savings will even last a decade, and when people 
often inadvertently lose retirement benefits when changing 
jobs.
    TIAA estimates 30 percent of Americans left their 
retirement account at their previous employer, and according to 
the Government Accountability Office, millions more have left 
two accounts behind, all to the tune of billions of dollars 
workers earned, saved for their future, and simply aren't able 
to use. We need to fix that, and I know Senator Warren and 
Senator Daines have a bipartisan bill to address this issue of 
lost and found retirement accounts.
    There are also ideas for how we can better increase 
participation in employer sponsored retirement plans through 
auto enrollment--auto re-enrollment, as well as bipartisan 
ideas for how we can get more people retirement options in the 
first place by building on the steps we took in the SECURE Act 
to make it easier for small businesses to offer quality 
retirement plans to their employees and expand which employees 
are eligible to participate in them. I pressed hard in our work 
on the bipartisan SECURE Act to make millions of part time 
workers eligible for their works' retirement plans, and I have 
continued pressing to make even more people eligible in my 
Women's Retirement Protection Act.
    I know Senator Casey and Senator Scott have a bipartisan 
bill on that as well. Of course, we also need to make sure that 
when people have retirement plans, they are given the tools 
they need to make the most of them as well. For example, tools 
to help people manage spending down their nest egg so they can 
make retirement resources last for the rest of their lives. And 
clear and complete information they need to make decisions that 
will affect their financial security for years to come.
    Unfortunately, a GAO report I requested found that fee 
disclosures currently provided by 401K plans simply are not 
cutting it. Looking at current fee disclosures, 4 in 10 people 
in a plan incorrectly believed they were not paying any fees, 
and the stakes are even higher for retirees when they are 
forced to consider whether to take a lump sum and trade a 
lifelong pension for a one time payout.
    GAO found financial disclosures people were given to 
consider these huge financial decisions often skipped details 
like how the value of the lump sum compared to their existing 
benefit, or the fact that accepting a lump sum would mean 
losing Federal protections. I have previously introduced 
legislation to change this. I hope we can get that done soon. 
Speaking of Federal protections, 401ks by far are the most 
common type of retirement plan, currently are not required to 
have spousal protections like defined benefit pension plans are 
required to have.
    These protections make sure a spouse cannot make decisions 
with huge financial consequences, like raiding a couple's 
retirement resources without their partner's knowledge and 
consent. I have called to strengthen these protections before 
and last week Senator Burr joined me in asking GAO to look at 
how steps like this could help people.
    When it comes to the issues we are talking about today, it 
is clear there is a lot of bipartisan interest in enhancing 
Americans' savings, improving their retirement planning 
options, and strengthening their financial security.
    I am hopeful today's hearing will help me, Senator Burr, 
and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to put together a 
package that builds on the bipartisan SECURE Act we all worked 
to passed in 2019, and the bipartisan legislation the House has 
been developing with even more common sense steps to make our 
retirement systems work better for families in Washington State 
and across the Country.
    Of course, we all know emergency savings in retirement are 
just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to issues that can 
undermine people's financial security. There are big challenges 
throughout our economy, like low wages, pay discrimination, 
high costs for childcare, health care, burdensome student loan 
debt, and more, costs that, like investments, compound over 
time and set workers back by hundreds of thousands of dollars, 
in some cases millions by the time they reach retirement.
    In addition to steps to strengthen our retirement system 
and help families save lives, like we are talking about today, 
I am also going to continue pushing to bring down costs, make 
our economy work for working families. I would like to ask 
unanimous consent to enter three letters into the record from 
the insured retirement institute, the Spark Institute, and the 
Arisa Industry Committee. So ordered.

    [The above information was not submitted:]

    The Chair. With that, I will turn it over to Ranking Member 
Burr for his opening remarks.

                   OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURR

    Senator Burr. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I apologize to 
the Committee Members for my tardiness this morning. Madam 
Chair, I want to thank you for scheduling this hearing to 
highlight the need for Congress to consider legislation to 
encourage Americans to save more for their futures.
    It is not often we have hearings on the pension part of the 
HELP Committee, but as I look at my remaining 9 months in the 
Senate, I am very aware of the importance of working and saving 
toward a secure retirement. Our labor committee hook into 
retirement issues is ERISA, the Employment Retirement Income 
Security Act.
    ERISA set standards for retirement and health plans in 
private industry to protect individuals in these plans. The 
Finance Committee handles the Internal Revenue Code portion. 
Retirement bills require our Committee to work in concert so 
that ERISA and the tax code properly work together to help 
Americans save for their own retirement. As a Member of both 
HELP and Finance, I consider my office a one stop shop on 
retirement matters.
    Not only will I help shepherd of ERISA matters through this 
Committee, I will also shape the work of the Finance Committee. 
At our last hearing last year, we focused on defined 
contribution plans, the reliable superstar of the retirement 
world. Today, we will examine how we can make further 
improvements to these plans.
    At our last hearing--and the question before so simple, 
what is working well and what needs improvement? The answer is 
that the first question seems easy at the surface level. The 
system works great when you participate. The two most important 
words for secure retirement are compound interest. If you put a 
little money aside every paycheck and let it grow, your future 
retirement will be a lot better off.
    But the system doesn't work great when individuals don't or 
can't participate. What we need to do is help Americans and 
their employers offer, operate, and fund individual retirement 
plans. One option we will learn about from TIAA, which has a 
great North Carolina presence is as all smart companies should, 
is multiple employer plans.
    TIAA has picked up the mantle as an administrator and an 
advocate for the enhancement of these plans. Under these plans, 
employers pull together to gain efficiencies to reduce cost of 
an administration of plans. Less money spent on administration 
means more money being saved. Congress has been working to 
reinvigorate these pooled employer plans to get retirement 
plans out to the more and more worksites and employees, 
especially small business employees.
    The wonderful thing about defined contribution plans is 
that Americans who participate in them can pick a piece of 
paper and see at least two things, their name and an account 
balance. It is their money, and it is there. It is not a 
concept, it is not an accounting notation, doesn't require a 
bailout. It requires personal contributions, maybe an employer 
match, some basic financial knowledge, and then compound 
interest does the work. Here is the truth. Americans need to 
save more.
    The gap between the retirement savings that Americans have 
and the savings they need is already in the trillions of 
dollars and likely to grow. Not only are many Americans 
struggling to keep track of their savings needs, even more 
alarming is how many people have no savings at all outside of 
Social Security. The data we have seen says that the over one-
quarter of non-retirees have nothing in their retirement piggy 
banks, many of whom are already nearing traditional retirement 
age.
    While the long term impact of the pandemic and economic 
lockdowns and the great resignation remain to be seen, we know 
that many Americans choose to tap into their retirement 
savings, draining assets from their intended retirement 
purposes. The bright side is that we have learned some good 
lessons.
    According to AARP, workers are 15 times more likely to save 
for retirement if they can make a payroll deduction to a 
savings plan at work. You don't spend what you don't see. We 
have also seen the success of automatic enrollment and employer 
matching to defined contribution plans. So the challenge to 
this Congress is finding ways to help employees and employers 
take advantage of the savings programs that already work.
    I look forward to hearing from today's panel about how to 
overcome the barriers individuals face in their own retirement 
planning, and the barriers employers face in offering 
retirement plans to workers. I hope throughout the process, 
Congress remembers that we shouldn't be trying to take our 
opinions--take our opinions of how to plan for the future and 
take the choices of retirement options away from individuals.
    The American people didn't send us here to be maternalistic 
or paternalistic and make their investment decisions for them 
or limit their choices. If we were all that good with planning 
ahead, we probably wouldn't have had a $30 trillion debt today.
    What I want the most is for Americans to control their own 
money, have safe options on how to invest and save, and live 
with a few Government and industry middlemen or middle women as 
possible. Madam Chair, I thank you. I look forward to our 
discussion.
    The Chair. Thank you very much, Senator Burr. Again, I want 
to welcome all of our witnesses today. We really appreciate all 
of you coming here. I will now introduce all of our witnesses, 
and I am pleased to welcome our first witness who has traveled 
here all the way from my home State of Washington.
    Petros Koumantaros is the managing Director and CEO of 
Spectrum Pension Consultants, the Co-Founder and Chairperson of 
Group IRA, and a Financial Consultant with Intellicents in 
Seattle. In these roles, he has experience working with 
investment advisors focused on retirement issues, employer 
sponsored retirement plans needing support with administration, 
record keeping and more, and people looking to better manage 
their retirement savings.
    Thank you for joining us today, Mr. Koumantaros. I am 
always delighted to have folks come out here from Washington 
State. Our next witness is Ms. Rademacher. She is Vice 
President of the Aspen Institute and Executive Director of the 
Aspen Financial Security Program in Washington, DC. Ms. 
Rademacher has led the program's efforts to consider how steps 
to address challenges, like growing wealth inequality and 
household financial insecurity, can support economic growth.
    Under her leadership, Aspen has developed important 
initiatives focused on looking at the forces that shape 
families' finances like work opportunities, retirement 
security, wealth inequality, and more. Ms. Rademacher, 
appreciate you joining us today to share your time and 
expertise. We will also be hearing from Cindy Hounsell, the 
President and Founder of the Women's Institute for a Secure 
Retirement.
    Founded in 1996, WISER works to improve opportunities for 
women to secure retirement income and educate the public about 
the inequities that disadvantage women in retirement.
    Ms. Hounsell also serves as Director of the National 
Resources Center on Women and Retirement, which WISER operates 
in partnership with the U.S. Administration on Aging. Ms. 
Hounsell, glad you could join us today. I look forward to your 
testimony. And our final witness will be introduced by Senator 
Burr.
    Senator Burr. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Murray, for the 
opportunity to introduce our North Carolina witness today. Doug 
Chittenden is head of TIAA's Client Relationship Team, which 
serves more than 15,000 retirement plan sponsors in the 
academic research, medical, and cultural fields. Doug has more 
than 30 years' experience at TIAA in a variety of positions.
    As head of client relations, he oversees sales strategy, 
service management, and guidance for institutional clients. His 
team is also responsible for managing relationships with key 
industry and advocacy organizations. TIAA has been in business 
for a long time, and they have a major presence in North 
Carolina.
    Last I heard, there were about 5,000 North Carolinians 
working for the company. Business would really be roaring if 
they moved all of their operations to North Carolina, but they 
are making good--they are making a good start. TIAA is most 
famous for providing retirement packages that serve the 
institutional community, historically teachers, but that is not 
all they do.
    What makes them a good witness for today's hearing is their 
support for pension research and their work with pooled and 
multiemployer employer plans. TIAA knows trends and they know 
principles of sound retirement. As all of our witnesses know, 
helping diverse employers provide retirement to employees is 
complex and important business, from recordkeeping to fiduciary 
duties to regulatory compliance.
    Congress needs the inside of the retirement industry so 
that we can continue to close the access and savings gaps. We 
are pleased to have you here today and we look forward to your 
testimony, Doug. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you. Welcome. And we will now begin our 
testimony. Our first witness will be Mr. Koumantaros. You may 
begin.

  STATEMENT OF PETROS KOUMANTAROS, MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CEO, 
   SPECTRUM PENSION CONSULTANTS; CO-FOUNDER AND CHAIRPERSON, 
   GROUPIRA; FINANCIAL CONSULTANT, INTELLICENTS, SEATTLE, WA

    Mr. Koumantaros. Thank you, Chair Murray, Ranking Member 
Burr, and all Members of this Committee for the opportunity to 
provide testimony in support of retirement security in America. 
My name is Petros Koumantaros, and I am a principal and 
shareholder in seven closely held financial services 
businesses.
    Collectively, these businesses work with 2,200 retirement 
plans, representing $9.2 billion in retirement plan assets, and 
support the needs of 97,000 retirement plan participants, the 
majority of whom work for small employers. My testimony today 
focuses on financial emergency savings, worksite financial 
planning and education, and views on how best to expand 
retirement plan coverage.
    The COVID-19 pandemic illustrated how ill-equipped many 
Americans were to manage financial emergencies. Among our 
clients, the incidence of financial hardship withdrawals in 
2020 increased by 280 percent when compared with 2019. We 
encourage Congress to consider financial emergency savings 
legislation with three key principles in mind.
    First, provide workers with penalty free access to 
financial emergency savings withdrawal from a retirement plan. 
Second, limit financial emergency savings to mitigate leakage 
from retirement plan accounts. And third, enable participants 
to repay financial emergency savings withdrawals when their 
financial circumstances improve. Another way to assist workers 
in saving for financial emergencies is to provide more 
resources for worksite financial planning.
    This Committee should consider a separate hearing on 
financial literacy. The fact is children can get a credit card 
before they learn how to manage debt. Children learn to consume 
and spend before they learn how to save and invest. Our 
children become adults, adults who enter the workforce ill-
equipped to budget, invest, manage debt, and to save. That lack 
of knowledge contributes to the financial stress that plagues 
millions of Americans.
    The cost of financial stress and lost worker productivity 
and increased staff turnover is estimated at $500 billion 
annually. Indeed, my experience engaging with hundreds of 
employers and thousands of their employees confirmed worksite 
financial planning enhances both worker financial and emotional 
security.
    In support of those measures, we applaud proposed 
legislation that would allow incidental expenses related to 
retirement plan design to be treated as planned expenses, and 
we recommend that Congress act to pass legislation clarifying 
this status, and in the process, expand access to financial 
planning and education for working Americans.
    Among employers with more than 100 employees, 87 percent of 
workers had access to workplace retirement benefits. In 
contrast, among employers with fewer than 100 employees, only 
50 percent--58 percent of workers had access to workplace 
retirement benefits. And yet, there are 32.5 million small 
businesses in the United States, which represents nearly 50 
percent of the American workforce. Why this disparity?
    The greatest barriers to retirement planning adoption among 
small employers are first, the costs of workplace retirement 
plans, and second, the administrative complexities placed upon 
small employers. Legislation should address both of these 
barriers. For example, employers must provide several documents 
to retirement plan participants.
    We were pleased when the Labor Department permitted a shift 
in default delivery from paper to electronic mediums. One study 
found retirement plan participants costs could be reduced by 
$500 million annually by converting to electronic delivery.
    Unfortunately, some continue to press for an erosion in 
these efficiencies, not just for the employer, but for 
participant accessibility of this information, which in 
electronic form can be readily translated to languages other 
than English, as well as enhanced for those who are visually 
impaired.
    The reduction in cost and complexity of delivery, as well 
as the enhancements in participant accessibility, will 
encourage more small employers to establish workplace 
retirement plans, thereby expanding retirement plan coverage. 
In addition to lowering participant plan costs, Congress should 
also focus on increased retirement plan coverage.
    There are 25.8 million part time workers in America, nearly 
two-thirds of whom are female. Many not covered by current 
workplace retirement plan designs. The SECURE Act of 2019 
positively changed eligibility rules to require employers to 
provide access to retirement plans for long time--long term 
part time employees. In Senator Murray's Women's Retirement 
Protection Act, the legislation would enhance upon the SECURE 
Act provisions to provide access to an even greater number of 
part time workers.
    I believe it is important for even more workers to have 
access to a retirement plan, including those who do not work 
500 hours, and I would like the opportunity to discuss with the 
Committee how best to accomplish that.
    Beyond the ideas shared in my remarks, we support other 
legislative proposals discussed further in my written 
testimony. We look forward to continued collaboration with the 
Members of this Committee to preserve, protect, and expand the 
U.S. retirement system so that everyone can plan and save for a 
dignified financial future. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Koumantaros follows:]
                prepared statement of petros koumantaros
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                 ______
                                 
               [summary statement of petros koumantaros]
                              Introduction
    Shares witness's professional background; summarizes the 
testimony's focal points.
                           Emergency Savings
    Highlights the problem of financial emergencies facing Americans; 
offers 3 principles of emergency savings legislation: penalty-free 
access, leakage mitigation, and repayment options; shares how to 
accomplish these principles administratively.
               Worksite Financial Planning and Education
    Highlights how children do not learn about financial literacy; 
highlights how adults enter the workforce ill-equipped to budget, 
invest, manage debt, and save; highlights the problem and costs of 
financial stress; shares case study of how worksite financial planning 
is effective to enhance worker financial security; shares ideas to 
expand access to financial literacy, retirement readiness programs, and 
worksite financial planning.
       Coverage Expansion and Other Retirement Plan Enhancements
    Highlights the retirement plan coverage gap; identifies financial 
security challenges for part-time workers, particularly women; offers 2 
principles of coverage expansion legislation for small employers: 
reduce costs and administrative burdens; introduces the concept of a 
Universal Coverage Automatic Safe Harbor to expand coverage to part-
time workers in exchange for simplified plan administration; offers 
suggestion to enhance Automatic IRA Rollovers by following Participant 
Directed Defined Contribution Plan Qualified Default Investment 
Alternative rules; offers suggestions to help locate missing 
participants and expand account portability through an employer safe 
harbor; shares the benefits of electronic delivery and disclosure of 
retirement plan documents and notices, including accessibility for non-
English speaking Americans; suggests simplification of the 401(k) Basic 
Safe Harbor Match formula to make benefits easier for participants to 
understand; offers suggestions to expand tax credits for small employer 
retirement plan adoption.
                               Conclusion
    Offers thanks to the Committee for its work on retirement security; 
offers to collaborate further.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Rademacher.

STATEMENT OF IDA RADEMACHER, VICE PRESIDENT, ASPEN INSTITUTE & 
 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FINANCIAL SECURITY PROGRAM, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Rademacher. Thank you, Chair Murray, Ranking Member 
Burr, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for holding this 
hearing today. Retirement savings and savers have long been a 
bipartisan bright spot in Congress, and I am grateful to you 
for carrying that tradition forward. I am Ida Rademacher. I am 
a Vice President at the Aspen Institute and I lead our 
financial security program.
    Our goal is to make financial security a top national 
priority. And since our inception, retirement savings has been 
a pillar of that work toward building a more inclusive economy 
with reduced wealth inequality and more deeply shared 
prosperity. My written remarks include a broad list of the 
challenges and opportunities facing our Country's retirement 
savings system, including issues like portability and lifetime 
income.
    But I will focus my remarks today on the foundational role 
that retirement savings play in wealth creation, the importance 
of closing gaps in access to retirement savings, and the 
potential for boosting emergency savings through the retirement 
system. Retirement savings are one of the largest sources of 
household wealth in the United States, second only to home 
equity for most households in America.
    The wealth building potential is important not just for the 
rich. Everyone needs wealth to thrive. And our research team 
has found that wealth functions in a variety of ways in a 
person's life to provide resilience, choice, mobility, physical 
and mental well-being, dignity, and legacy. Too often 
conversations about retirement savings carry an implicit or an 
explicit assumption that low and moderate income households 
don't need savings because Social Security replaces much of 
their income.
    But given the critical role of wealth in the quality of 
life and the goals that we all have, the claim is false. It is 
essential that we build a retirement savings system that works 
for everyone. We still face a number of challenges, and far too 
many workers lack access to this powerful system. Account 
ownership and balances are distributed unevenly across 
socioeconomic groups, racial groups, generations, and gender.
    Of particular note, a disproportionate lack of access to 
workplace retirement savings has deepened the racial wealth gap 
in this country. In 2016, the typical Black household had 46 
percent of the retirement wealth of a typical white household, 
and Latino households had 49 percent of the retirement wealth 
of a white household. But there are promising solutions for 
policymakers to take action to begin to close these gaps.
    Further expanding coverage to additional part time workers 
is one of these solutions. This would help women in particular 
and women of color in particular, who are more than twice as 
likely as men to work in voluntary part time jobs. Expanding 
the market for multiple employer plans to include more workers, 
such as those that are nonprofit organization could also move 
the needle by lowering costs and providing economies of scale 
that are closer to those achieved by large businesses.
    Encouraging auto enrollment and retirement savings is 
another promising solution that would build off the success we 
have seen with automatic enrollment. And as workers change jobs 
with increasing frequency over the course of their working 
life, leaving a variety of small accounts scattered across 
different financial institutions, solutions like auto 
portability and a retirement savings lost and found data base 
are vital to ensure the retirement savings system is designed 
for the needs of the 21st century workforce.
    Finally, I want to raise the key opportunity for this 
Committee to consider to strengthen the retirement savings 
system and have it serve the greatest number of Americans 
successfully, and that is supporting households and saving for 
emergencies.
    A study that was released just last week by the Consumer 
Financial Protection Bureau deepened our understanding of the 
critical nature of emergency savings, finding that households 
with emergency savings were substantially less likely to 
overdraft, to take on high interest debt, or to withdraw early 
from their retirement savings.
    These findings corroborate recent research we initiated 
during the pandemic that found that households with at least 
$1,000 of emergency savings were half as likely to withdraw 
their workplace retirement savings accounts compared to those 
that didn't have any liquid savings.
    You have a particular opportunity to significantly boost 
emergency savings by allowing providers to offer automatic 
enrollment into workplace savings accounts in the same way the 
tool is used for retirement savings.
    When automatic enrollment became the standard feature of 
401k plans in the U.S., participation nearly doubled, with 93 
percent of new hires contributing. I am happy to answer more 
questions later and thank you for your time. I want to commend 
again the Committee for your leadership on this critical issue 
of retirement savings, and I look forward to the conversation.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Rademacher follows:]
                  prepared statement of ida rademacher
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                 ______
                                 
                 [summary statement of ida rademacher]
    Ida Rademacher is Vice President at the Aspen Institute and 
Executive Director of the Financial Security Program (FSP). The 
Financial Security Program's mission is to illuminate and solve the 
most critical financial challenges facing American households and to 
make financial security for all a top national priority. Since its 
inception, retirement savings has been a pillar of its work.
           Retirement Savings is a Pillar of Wealth Building
    Aspen FSP researchers have found that the ability to build wealth 
provides resilience, enables investments in economic mobility, provides 
intergenerational support, supports health and quality of life, and 
provides a sense of ownership, voice, and control. But Americans lack 
equal access to the financial stability required for wealth building 
and the tools that can turn those resources into durable wealth. After 
home equity, retirement savings are the second largest source of 
household wealth in the United States. For everyone to have a secure 
retirement and the wealth that enables financial security, the US must 
build a retirement system that provides everyone access to retirement 
savings accounts with high-quality features, regardless of where they 
work or how much they are paid.
          Too Many Lack Access to Workplace Retirement Savings
    Approximately forty million workers in America currently lack 
access to a workplace retirement savings plan, and larger persistent 
gaps in access exist for workers of color, women, and low-income 
households. Solutions that would address parts of the retirement 
savings system's accessibility challenges include increasing the number 
of part-time workers who have access to retirement plans at work, 
allowing Multiple/Pooled Employer Plans (that have the potential to 
make offering retirement plans cheaper for smaller employers) to 
include workers at nonprofit organizations, and promoting automatic re-
enrollment in retirement plans.
      A Lack of Portability Leaves the System in the 20th Century
    The average worker changes jobs 12 times over the course of a 
career, and those with access to 401(k) plans are faced each time with 
rolling over or cashing out their savings. Lost savings from job 
changes alone total between $60 billion and $105 billion each year. 
Creating an online ``lost and found'' data base to help workers locate 
lost or forgotten retirement accounts can provide a meaningful 
opportunity to help account holders reclaim the more than 16 million 
currently abandoned retirement savings accounts.
       Lifetime Income Streams in Retirement for All is Critical
    Routinely positive cash-flow is the foundation of financial 
stability and security, and people need better tools to turn nest eggs 
into lifetime income and information to navigate the decumulation phase 
of retirement. Policymakers should continue monitoring the developing 
market in this area.
Emergency Savings Protects Financial Security and Safeguards Retirement 
                                Savings
    Emergency savings is a powerful safeguard against leakage from 
retirement savings: Aspen FSP recently found that households with at 
least $1,000 in emergency savings were half as likely to withdraw from 
their workplace retirement savings accounts during the pandemic. 
Unfortunately, existing emergency savings solutions do not meet the 
needs of millions of people because tools like automatic enrollment are 
seldom available for emergency savings in the way they are for 
retirement savings. Allowing for automatic enrollment in workplace 
emergency savings, in the same way retirement plans already 
successfully do, would boost short-term financial security and protect 
retirement savings.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Hounsell.

  STATEMENT OF CINDY HOUNSELL, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, WOMEN'S 
   INSTITUTE FOR A SECURE RETIREMENT [WISER], WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Hounsell. Good morning. Thanks to the Committee for 
inviting WISER to participate in today's hearing. I am Cindy 
Hounsell, President and Founder of the Women's Institute for a 
Secure Retirement. Our mission is to educate and inform women, 
so they are prepared financially and to support opportunities 
for them to secure adequate retirement income.
    This brief statement will cover why women, the National 
Resource Center on Women and Retirement, and three 
interventions that are workable solutions to the challenges 
that women face, emergency savings accounts, targeted 
retirement literacy, and auto portability. Why women? That is 
the question that we are often asked, and the answer is there 
are nearly 6 million more women than men at age 65 and almost 
70 percent of the over 85 population are female.
    Many of those in the 85 plus group end up living at the 
poverty level, even if they have never been poor before. While 
it is well-documented that many Americans are not prepared for 
retirement, the future for under-resourced women is alarming. 
Women have a more difficult time saving for reasons commonly 
acknowledged, lower wages, time spent either out of the paid 
workforce because of caregiving or working part time, which is 
why women make up nearly two-thirds of part time workers, 64 
percent.
    Also telling a big part of the story is that while women 
are 46 percent of the total labor force, they make up 69 
percent of low wage workers. These women have little access to 
benefits or financial wellness programs. Many also work all 
their lives with little to no savings to show for it. Yet, the 
financial hardships due to the COVID economy highlight the 
importance of having a cash cushion to get through hard times.
    The research finds that working women want to take control 
of their finances and their retirement. They want access and 
they want more financial education. They want to know how to 
overcome the knowledge gap. Since women generally live longer, 
they need to have more savings that will last longer.
    Emergency savings are foundational building blocks for the 
unbanked and for moderate low income women, as well as for many 
employees who just agree that they want to enroll in a 
workplace emergency savings program with payroll deduction if 
offered by their employer.
    The findings from the Federal Reserve finding the 39 
percent that were unable to cover a $400 unexpected bill has 
highlighted the need for policymakers to make workers--to help 
workers to save more and to find ways to use the employer plan 
structure to make it less burdensome, with linked emergency 
fund accounts.
    WISER's focus is on expanding its turnkey emergency fund 
model with the credit unions for at-risk women to establish 
accounts and begin saving. Encouragingly, these model programs 
help these groups of women access matched savings accounts, 
allowing them to better their finances.
    The National Resource Center on Women and Retirement is 
WISER's key Initiative. It is a national clearinghouse, and 
through our partners, we have access to diverse groups of women 
to train trainers in their communities by providing helpful 
resources and experts to lean on. We have directly reached 
hundreds of thousands of women through these workshops and our 
partners and reached millions with our publications.
    Our target populations include women from many job 
categories and from many demographic groups. What they all have 
in common is they want access to basic, trustworthy financial 
information, and access to accounts and how to deal with the 
various financial decision points along the way.
    Their message quite simply is, tell me what I need to do 
and show me how to do it. A recent report finds that $400 
billion has left the retirement system since 2015. That 
headline points to the importance of a tech based solution 
developed by the retirement clearinghouse. It ensures that when 
someone changes jobs, their 401k savings move automatically 
from the old plan to the new plan, even if their assets are 
less than $5,000.
    That allows their savings to continue to grow in one easy 
to monitor consolidated investment account. The best thing 
about AP is that the more financially challenged demographic 
groups, those with the smaller balances, lower their cash out 
rates more than other groups when it is a feature of the plans.
    In conclusion, WISER helps workers do the best they can 
within the system that we have now, by providing financial 
literacy and capability programs, educating and advocating for 
a much needed and simplified savers tax credit, and helping 
women without access to a workplace retirement plan to be able 
to build emergency funds.
    Thank you for listening.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Hounsell follows:]
                  prepared statement of cindy hounsell
                              Introduction
    Good morning. I am Cindy Hounsell, President of the Women's 
Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER), a 25-year-nonprofit 
organization that helps women, educators and policymakers address the 
complicated issues that affect women's planning for their long-term 
financial security.

    Thank you to the Committee for inviting WISER to participate in 
today's hearing on improving retirement and enhancing savings. WISER is 
dedicated to the education and advocacy that will improve the long-term 
financial quality of life for women.

    As the only organization to focus exclusively on the unique long-
term financial challenges that women face, WISER's mission is to 
educate/inform women so they are better prepared financially and to 
support opportunities to secure adequate retirement income; we do that 
through direct education, workshops, partnerships, innovative programs 
and research.

    WISER has spent most of its formative years working with diverse 
groups of women and training-trainers to make sure that there is 
community buy-in and the ability to follow-up with experts. Black 
women, Latino and Native American women in communities have been 
prominent in our work. While coverage and access to retirement programs 
for underserved women are difficult to find our Aging Network partners 
have helped WISER promote programs to encourage low-income women to 
participate in incentivized savings accounts.

    WISER also supports workable solutions to the challenges women 
face--WISER's statement will describe three of those important 
interventions: (1) Emergency Savings Accounts are foundational 
representing an important step toward financial well-being; (2) 
Targeted Retirement Literacy is linked to overall financial well-being 
yet women generally have lower levels of financial literacy; WISER's 
programs address the literacy and capability gaps; and (3) Auto-
portability a technology based solution to prevent workers who change 
jobs from cashing out their retirement savings. The more financially 
challenged demographic groups--those with the smaller balances--lower 
their cash-out rates more than other groups when auto portability is a 
feature of the plans.
                               WHY Women?
    WISER is often asked about the focus on women? The response is the 
numbers-there are 5.8 million more women than men at age 65, and 67 
percent of the over age 85 population are female. \1\ Many of those in 
the 85+ group end up living alone in near or at the poverty level, even 
if they have never been poor before.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\  Administration for Community Living, 2020 Profile of Older 
Americans, May 2021.

              Issues Affecting Women's Retirement Security
    Women have a more difficult time accumulating retirement savings 
than their male peers for reasons commonly acknowledged: lower wages 
and time spent either not working or working part time due to 
caregiving responsibilities. While 46 percent of the total labor force 
are women, they make up 69 percent of low wage workers. Women make up 
two thirds of caregivers and they make up 64 percent of part time 
workers. We do not yet know the full impact of COVID on these figures.

    Lower wages, gaps in earnings, and part time employment translate 
into less retirement savings and most likely lower Social Security 
benefits. The fact that women generally live longer than men makes it 
harder since they need to make their savings last longer and to avoid 
mistakes.

    Women want to take control of their retirement. Research shows that 
while women report a lack of confidence and knowledge about financial 
matters, they say they want more education, more information to help 
ensure a secure future. They want to know how to overcome the knowledge 
gap and the investment gap and to know how to spend down and protect 
their savings and learn about annuities and making their money last.

    Yet, while the research also documents that many Americans are not 
financially prepared for retirement, the future for under-resourced 
women is especially alarming. Women are overrepresented in the low-wage 
workforce, with little access to benefits or financial wellness 
programs. These low-to moderate-income (LMI) women often work all their 
lives with little to no savings to show for it, and are more likely 
than men to live out their lives in poverty.

    Encouragingly, emergency fund model programs focused on helping 
these groups of women access matched savings accounts allow them to 
better their finances.
                       Emergency Savings Accounts
    Emergency savings are foundational building blocks for the unbanked 
and for moderate and low-income women as well as for many employees who 
are willing to agree that they want to enroll in a workplace ``rainy 
day'' emergency savings program with payroll deduction if offered by 
their employer. \2\ Yet, there are many obstacles that can get in the 
way of accumulating savings for one's future, for example, inadequate 
income, competing financial demands (debt, unexpected expenses, helping 
family), lack of access to banks or other financial institutions, lack 
of financial knowledge, or simply failing to focus on or prioritize 
saving.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\  Harvey, C., John, D., & Brown, K.(2018) Saving at work for a 
rainy day: Results from a national survey of employees (AARP Public 
Policy Institute Report).

    WISER's focus is on expanding its turn-key emergency fund model 
with the credit unions for the most at-risk women to establish accounts 
and begin saving. The findings from the Federal Reserve research found 
that 39 percent of Americans would not be able to cover a $400 
unexpected bill. This statistic has highlighted the need for 
policymakers to help workers save more and to find ways to use the 
employer plan structure to make it less burdensome with linked 
accounts.
               Targeted Financial Literacy and Capability
    Research shows that women generally have lower levels of financial 
literacy than men; yet literacy is linked to overall financial well-
being. \3\ Understanding the basics of the complicated financial world 
is important in order to make the most of one's income, especially for 
those without access to information or financial literacy programs. 
When provided with basic, practical financial education that emphasizes 
that financial goals are achievable, workers can become better 
consumers and improve their financial situation. An early definition of 
financial literacy by the National Endowment for Financial Education 
(NEFE) follows: ``the development, acquisition, maintenance, and 
conservation of scarce resources that allow families and individuals, 
as they interact with the world around them, to better their levels of 
living.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\  Yakoboski, Paul J., Annamaria Lusardii; & Hassler, Andrea, 
TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index (P-Fin Index), Financial 
Literacy and Wellness among U.S. Women: Differences among 
Underrepresented Minority Women, November 2020.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The National Resource Center on Women & Retirement (The Center)
    WISER's key initiative is a program administered cooperatively and 
funded by the Administration on Community Living's, Administration on 
Aging--the National Resource Center on Women and Retirement (the 
Center). The Center operates as a national clearinghouse of tools and 
information on retirement planning to improve the financial knowledge 
of the Center's population of vulnerable women by helping them plan and 
achieve retirement security. WISER presents financial workshops to 
diverse groups of women across the country.

    The Center creates publications that explain the complexity of 
women's retirement issues: claiming Social Security, signing up for 
Medicare, emergency savings programs, caregiving issues, divorce, 
widowhood, long-term care and elder financial abuse. Most women cannot 
afford even the smallest mistakes, and they often encounter life events 
that have a significant impact on their financial lives, such as 
divorce and widowhood. The Center provides the information and tools 
needed to navigate these situations to assist in their critical 
decision-making.

    Through our collaborations we have access to diverse groups of 
women, we train-trainers in their communities by providing helpful 
resources. The Center has directly reached hundreds of thousands of 
women through WISER's and our partners' workshops and we've reached 
millions with our partners' publications, media, social media and 
website. WISER has also collaborated through partnerships with 
government agencies such as the Social Security Administration, the 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Securities and Exchange 
Commission.

    Success in reaching these groups has resulted from the partners 
developed along the way and the adaptability and flexibility needed to 
make the programs work. Vickie Elisa, our Atlanta partner was 
successful in educating the women in her Mothers' Voices programs for 
African Americans--teaching about workplace benefits and retirement, 
and motivating the women to save--importantly, Vickie helped them 
believe that they could have a stable financial life; she persuaded 
them in part by sharing her own story of similar financial challenges. 
The women saw Vickie and her nonprofit as an agent of change and a 
`trusted messenger.'

    Amy Hinojosa, President & CEO of MANA, A National Latino 
Organization with its 25+ chapters and affiliates, formed a strategic 
partnership with WISER to deliver financial education at the community 
level with a similar training-trainers model. Over the last decade, The 
MANA Financial Literacy Leadership Institute Training has trained more 
than 350 Hispanic community trainers from 26 cities and 16 states. 
These trainers have facilitated over 900 community workshops for more 
than 15,000 Hispanic women.
           What We Know Works for Helping Women Save and Plan
    Throughout WISER's experience of providing education and 
programming, we have learned what women want and what works in reaching 
underserved audiences. Our target populations served over the years 
include low-to moderate-income women, Latino, Black women and Asian 
women, Native Americans, caregivers, women going through divorce, 
widows, nurses, independent workers, childcare workers, and home health 
workers; and those who traditionally have not had access to retirement 
and financial information. What they all have in common is they want 
easy access to basic, trustworthy financial information, and how to 
deal with the various financial decision points along the way. Quite 
simply, ``tell me what I need to do and how to do it.''

    But simply having good materials and resources is not enough. It is 
important to adapt the information to meet the unique needs of each 
audience and deliver it in a way that creates trust and develops 
confidence in one's ability to succeed in building financial security.
                           Retirement Income
    How much will women need? The percent of a worker's pre-retirement 
income needed to maintain retirement security depends on the 
circumstances of each individual household. \4\ Access to retirement 
income is based on a woman's work life, her earnings, savings, and her 
marital status. But during their working years, women generally earn 
less because of the gender pay gap, because they have diverse work 
patterns and education levels, and are overrepresented in the low-wage 
workforce without access to adequate workplace benefits. The results 
are women having less in savings, less in Social Security benefits and 
less in workplace retirement savings accounts. \5\ It is important for 
all workers to know that Social Security benefits only cover 40 percent 
of preretirement income for the average worker.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\  GAO, Retirement Security: Better Information on Income 
Replacement Rates Needed to Help Workers Plan for Retirement, GAO-16-
242, Washington, DC, Mar. 1, 2016.
    \5\  For summary information on the gender pay gap see WISER's 
Press Release from Pay Equity Day 2019 at: https://www.wiserwomen.org/
images/imagefiles/Equal%20Pay%20Day%202019%20PressRelease.pdf.

    The average annual Social Security benefit for retired women 
workers in 2020: $16,536 compared with $20,568 for men. \6\ Overall, 
women aged 65+ have 30 percent less retirement income than men, \7\ yet 
they need more income to support the costs of living longer. \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\  Social Security Administration, Annual Statistical Supplement 
August 2018.
    \7\  GAO. Retirement Security: Women Still Face Challenges. GAO-12-
699. July 9, 2012.
    \8\  GAO. Retirement Security Older Women Report Facing a 
Financially Uncertain Future. GAO-20-435. August 13,2020.

    To make matters worse, women have been disproportionally affected 
by the economics of the Covid pandemic; millions losing and leaving 
jobs, accumulating debt, and worsening their previous financial 
situations thus making it more difficult to pay monthly bills or cover 
unexpected expenses. \9\ Also, problematic for many women is not 
knowing what they need to know to make the best financial decisions, or 
to take advantage of benefits they might miss out on. The recent 
financial hardships due to the COVID-19 economy highlight the 
importance of having a cash cushion to get through times of 
unemployment or reduced hours. Working harder is not a realistic 
solution, however, for many women in this target population already 
work more than one job at a time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\  2021 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index. Demographic 
Variations in Financial Literacy Race, /Ethnicity and Gender.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Unique Challenges: Longevity Risks, Health Care and Caregiving
    Longevity Risks & Health Care Costs: Women confront other 
retirement income challenges which are long-lasting due to their 
longevity and health care costs. Longevity risks include inflation, 
loss of spouse, poverty and health care costs which have a 
disproportionate harm on women's retirement income. Many women are 
unaware of these facts and what services Medicare and Social Security 
actually provide. In fact, many families are not aware that Medicare 
does not cover most long-term care costs or that Medicare premiums have 
to be paid and are subtracted from their Social Security benefits's. 
The premiums are now more than 10 percent of the average woman's 
monthly benefit--causing an income shortfall for the many women relying 
on their Social Security benefit for most of their income.

    Caregiving: Currently, there are 53 million family caregivers, and 
the majority are women. Women generally and as caregivers are spending 
on average 9 years out of the paid workforce. \10\ Those 9 years mean 
zero earnings, or a career of 29 years compared to men's 39-year 
careers. The zero earnings are compounded in the 35-year calculation of 
their Social Security benefit. In addition, women, because of their 
need for flexibility for caregiving, are twice as likely to work on a 
part-time basis as are men, with the resulting lower earnings. Women 
are also more likely to work in industries that pay lower salaries and 
have no retirement plans or less generous retirement plans.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\  Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement, Ten Facts About 
Women and Caregiving, 2019.

    Financial Caregiving: Women with compromising work schedules are 
leaving the labor force or working part-time to accommodate family 
needs. Recent research studying the financial effects of caregiving 
found a majority of women/caregivers have given little/or no thought to 
their own financial situation, while over half describe their financial 
position as fair or poor. \11\ Another study shows that single women 
who care for elderly parents are 2.5 times more likely than other 
caregivers to live in poverty in retirement. \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\  Transamerica Institute, The Many Faces of Caregivers: A 
Close-Up Look at Caregiving and Its Impacts (2017) Hereafter TI at 196.
    \12\  Donato, Katharine and Wakabayashi, Chizuko: Women Caregivers 
are More Likely to Face Poverty, Sallyport, Magazine of Rice University 
Vol. 61 No.3. Spring 2005.

    The financial consequences are serious \13\ but understanding the 
financial implications of these decisions allows for better planning 
and more opportunities for preserving retirement income and affording 
health benefits. However, financial caregiving also has consequences 
for both the caregiver and the care recipient who needs help with 
managing their financial affairs. \14\ More than one in five caregivers 
provide both financial management and out-of-pocket support ($7,242+ 
annually) \15\ to their care recipients with two-thirds of family 
caregivers reporting they could benefit from financial advice on 
managing money. \16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\  Id TI at197&199.
    \14\  Merrill Lynch,``The Journey of Caregiving.''(2017) Hereafter 
ML at 22 and Figure 9.
    \15\  AARP, ``2021 Caregivers Out-of-Pocket Costs: Study and Fact 
Sheet, by Laura Skufca and Chuck Rainville, June 2021.
    \16\  ML at 24.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                   Auto Portability--A Positive Step
    A recent report finds that $400 billion has left the retirement 
system since 2015 \17\ That headline points to the importance of a 
fairly new retirement savings feature--a technology-based solution 
developed by the Retirement Clearinghouse. It ensures that when someone 
switches jobs (which 14.8 million workers do annually), their 
401(k)'savings moves automatically from their previous employer's plan 
to their new employer's plan, even if their assets are less than 
$5,000. That allows their savings to continue to grow in one easy-to-
monitor, consolidated investment account.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\  Morningstar Report: Retirement-Plan-Landscape-Report.

    Studies indicate that over a 40-year period, auto portability could 
decrease cash-outs to such a degree that it could add as much as $1.5 
trillion to $2 trillion to Americans' retirement savings \18\. And much 
of that savings will belong to the people who need it most.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\  EBRI, The Impact of Auto Portability on Preserving Retirement 
Savings Currently Lost to 401(k) Cashout Leakage, Issue Brief Number 
489, August 15, 2019.

    Without auto portability, 50 percent of workers who earn between 
$20,000 and $30,000 cash out within a year when changing jobs. Sixty-
three percent of Black and 57 percent of Hispanic workers also cash 
out, as do 41 percent of women. Among women, 71 percent percent who 
cash out are women age 25-34. But auto portability changes that. The 
more financially challenged demographic groups--those with the smaller 
balances--lower their cash-out rates more than other groups when auto 
portability is a feature of the plans. \19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \19\  Retirement Clearinghouse, New Data Proves the Effectiveness 
of 401(k) Auto Portability, July 27,2021.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               Conclusion
    WISER's focus is to help workers do the best they can within the 
system we have now by providing Financial Literacy & Capability 
programs, educating and advocating for the much-improved Saver's Tax 
Credit, preserving savings through auto portability and helping women 
to build emergency funds. We have recently been working with employers 
to expand information about Medicare & Social Security and encourage 
signing up for a mySocialSecurity account as most of the workforce no 
longer receives annual Social Security statements. Our work with the 
Society of Actuaries has helped us teach women about the longevity 
issues and how to mitigate paying for extra years by providing an 
understanding of annuities.

    As a nation with an aging population, we need to educate the public 
on strengthening our existing retirement programs wherever possible. 
That means focusing especially on the links to both Social Security and 
Medicare, and educating average workers about how these systems work to 
prevent penalties and loss of benefits.

    Below is a list of key issues that most workers need to know:

        (1) Longevity risk is poorly understood and not widely planned 
        for and yet we are an aging society.

        (2) Many individuals struggle to plan how they will draw down 
        assets and need greater access to flexible income distribution 
        options and guaranteed lifetime income options.

        (3) The impact of future inflation and taxes is often not 
        included in planning for retirement despite the significant 
        impact it can have on retirement income--think 10 years after 
        retirement.

        (4) Individuals are often confused about how much is needed to 
        cover their expenses in retirement. Benchmarks would be 
        helpful.

        (5) Many women assume they will just keep working beyond normal 
        retirement age, but more than 40 percent of Americans end up 
        retiring earlier than they planned to, usually due to job loss, 
        family caregiver needs including health issues, or personal 
        poor health.

    Planning for retirement is effective and workplace seminars are 
helpful, but there is a need for basic resources to help people figure 
out how much they may need to increase their savings in order to retire 
with the ability to cover their expenses.

    The following are suggested actions for building and supporting 
increased economic and financial security for all workers:

          Provide basic benchmarks so people are not confused 
        about their full retirement age and when to sign up for 
        Medicare;

          Improve programs for those with very low benefits 
        such as those who are primarily low-wage, unmarried and widowed 
        women;

          Provide some form of longevity bump-up for those age 
        85+;

          Study ways to offer retirement protection to women 
        with significant time spent as caregivers, including the 
        possibility of a provision for Social Security credits and 
        credits for out-of-pocket expenses that may be preventing women 
        from saving;

          Provide all workers access to Social Security 
        estimated benefit statements;

          Expand retirement savings opportunities and emergency 
        savings;

          Improve the Savers Tax Credit and make it a staple of 
        retirement saving for middle-income as well as for moderate-and 
        low-income workers;

          Enhance knowledge of the three pillars of the 
        Nation's retirement systems (Social Security, employer-provided 
        retirement plans, and personal savings) by helping individuals 
        understand the importance of having access to each of the 
        pillars; and

          Help individuals learn what they need to know about 
        their Social Security benefits, about preserving their employer 
        sponsored benefits and about taking advantage of individual 
        savings programs available to them.
                                 ______
                                 
                 [summary statement of cindy hounsell]
    The Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER), is a 25-
year-nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate/inform women so 
they are better prepared financially and to support opportunities for 
women to secure adequate retirement income.

    Women have a more difficult time accumulating retirement savings 
than their male peers for reasons commonly acknowledged: lower wages 
and time spent either not working or working part-time due to family 
and caregiving responsibilities. With longer life-expectancies women 
have a greater need to save more for retirement. However, they face 
significant obstacles to successfully building wealth.

    The National Resource Center on Women & Retirement: WISER's key 
initiative is a national clearinghouse administered cooperatively and 
funded by the U.S. Administration on Aging--The Center features tools 
and information on retirement planning to improve the financial 
knowledge of the population of vulnerable women by helping them plan 
and achieve retirement security.

    WISER offers direct education, workshops, partnerships, innovative 
programs and research. WISER works with diverse groups of women and 
trains-trainers to make sure that there is community buy-in and the 
ability to follow-up with experts. Black women, Latino and Native 
American women in communities have been prominent in our work.

    WISER's comprehensive information explains the complexity of 
women's retirement issues: claiming Social Security, signing up for 
Medicare, emergency savings programs, caregiving issues, divorce, 
widowhood, long-term care and elder financial abuse. Most women cannot 
afford even the smallest mistake, and they often encounter life events 
that have a significant impact on their financial lives, such as 
divorce and widowhood. The Center provides the information and tools 
needed to navigate these situations to assist in decision-making.

    Through our collaborations we have access to diverse groups of 
women, we train-trainers in their communities by providing helpful 
resources. The Center has directly reached hundreds of thousands of 
women through WISER's and our partners' workshops and we've reached 
millions with our partners' publications, media, social media and 
website. WISER has also collaborated through partnerships with 
government agencies such as the Social Security Administration, the 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Securities and Exchange 
Commission.

    WISER supports workable solutions to the challenges women face--
WISER's statement will describe three of those important interventions: 
(1) Emergency Savings Accounts are foundational representing an 
important step toward financial well-being; (2) Targeted Retirement 
Literacy is linked to overall financial well-being yet women generally 
have lower levels of financial literacy; WISER's programs address the 
literacy and capability gaps; and (3) Auto-portability a technology 
based solution to prevent workers who change jobs from cashing out 
their retirement savings. The more financially challenged demographic 
groups--those with the smaller balances--lower their cash-out rates 
more than other groups when auto portability is a feature of the plans.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chittenden.

  STATEMENT OF DOUG CHITTENDEN, HEAD OF CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS, 
 TEACHERS INSURANCE AND ANNUITY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA [TIAA], 
                         CHARLOTTE, NC

    Mr. Chittenden. Good morning, Chair Murray, Ranking Member 
Burr, distinguished Members of the Committee, and thank you for 
inviting me to speak today on the critical issue of retirement 
security. My name is Doug Chittenden. I am head of Client 
Relationships at TIAA, where we provide retirement services to 
5 million employees and more than 15,000 employers in the not 
for profit community.
    I especially want to thank Ranking Member Burr, my home 
state Senator, for inviting me to testify today, and I am proud 
to be part of the more than 5,000, and growing, employees TIAA 
has in North Carolina. I want to commend the HELP Committee for 
its bipartisan efforts to advance proposals designed to enhance 
retirement savings for American workers. our Country's 
retirement savings system has evolved over time.
    Today, I will share some steps Congress can take to 
continue to ensure we have an effective system. The first, in 
our view, most important step is expanding access to lifetime 
income solutions in employer sponsored retirement plans, and 
most specifically, those that would provide the highest returns 
for retirement investors.
    Over the years, the retirement system has shifted from a 
pension plan and defined benefit structure, where employers 
would provide guaranteed income in retirement, to one that is 
designed more to focus on accumulation of assets through 
defined contribution plans. This has transferred the risk of 
making investment decisions and providing retirement income 
from the employer to the worker.
    The result is Americans face a projected $4 trillion 
retirement income gap and more than 40 percent of households 
are forecasted to exhaust their savings during retirement. To 
address this gap, defined contribution plans are evolving to 
increase in plan access to guaranteed lifetime income solutions 
through annuities.
    Annuities are a vital and sensible solution as they provide 
pension like income in retirement, as well as guaranteed 
returns in the saving stage. Because most retirement savers 
today are defaulted into an investment option in their plans, 
it is important that employers have the option to incorporate 
the best annuities into these default options.
    Unfortunately, current regulations discourage employers 
from including the most effective lifetime income options on 
their plan menus. Fixed annuities with delayed liquidity 
features would offer retirees the potential for higher returns 
in retirement income as a part of a default investment option.
    TIAA is asking Congress to amend the Department of Labor's 
default investment regulations to provide employers with more 
latitude in designing their default investments. A bipartisan 
House bill, the Life Income for Employees Act, would amend the 
regulations to allow a guaranteed lifetime income component 
with delayed liquidity features as a default investment option.
    This legislation would expand the options available to 
employers in their selection of an appropriate default 
investment for their employees. For employers looking to 
established the guaranteed income features that were a hallmark 
and defined benefit pensions, this bill would give them a much 
needed tool to offer personal pensions to their workers.
    This is vital to addressing the future lifetime income 
needs of retirement savers. We asked the Committee to consider 
modernizing these regulations. Congress can also take steps to 
increase access to retirement savings plans.
    One of the biggest deterrents to small employers adopting 
retirement plans is the cost of starting, administering, and 
maintaining the plan. The SECURE Act took steps to address this 
by enacting improvements to multiple employer plans, MEPs, or 
pooled employer plans, PEPs. MEPs and PEPs make it easier for 
small employers to leverage economies of scale and join a 
single retirement plan.
    Unfortunately, not for profit employers were not included, 
but proposals being considered by this Committee and others 
would fix that. We have been encouraged by how some of our 
clients have come together and improved upon their existing 
retirement plans using the MEP structure as it exists today. 
Other steps that could be taken include improving access to 
plans for long term part time workers, simplifying plan 
disclosures, and increasing incentives for starting plants.
    Finally, improving retirement savings should be an 
additional area of focus. A recent study found one in four 
Americans have no retirement savings, and those who are saving 
are not saving enough. There are several ways this can be 
addressed.
    These include increasing the use of automatic enrollment 
features, which have been very successful at assisting 
Americans to save more, allowing for employers to make matching 
contributions based on payments employees are making on their 
student loans, and helping those who leave the workforce to 
care for family members catch up on missed savings 
opportunities.
    I commend you Chair Murray and Ranking Member Burr for 
holding this hearing today. Thank you for the opportunity to 
testify. On behalf of TIAA's 5 million retirement plan 
participants and 15,000 employers, thank you for your 
bipartisan commitment to improving and modernizing the current 
retirement system. And I look forward to answering your 
questions.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Chittenden follows:]
                 prepared statement of doug chittenden
                              Introduction
    Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr, distinguished Members of the 
Committee, thank you for inviting me to speak with you today on the 
critical issue of retirement security.

    My name is Doug Chittenden, Senior Executive Vice President and 
Head of Client Relationships at TIAA, where I work with my team to 
provide retirement services to five million employees at more than 
15,000 employers in the academic, research, medical and cultural 
fields. I especially want to thank Ranking Member Burr, my home state 
Senator, for inviting me to testify today. TIAA is proud of the more 
than 5,000 employees we have in North Carolina who work hard every day 
to help millions of Americans retire securely. Additionally, we are 
honored to manage the assets of more than 120,000 individuals across 
the state of North Carolina, including employees of Wake Forest. Chair 
Murray, we also proudly serve in the State of Washington, including 
your alma mater Washington State University, and are helping 97,000 
Washington State residents prepare for retirement.

    I also want to acknowledge Chair Murray, Ranking Member Burr and 
the other Members of the HELP Committee for your ongoing bipartisan 
efforts to develop and advance legislative proposals designed to 
enhance retirement savings for American workers. Bipartisanship has 
long been the hallmark of successful retirement system improvements, 
going back as far as the passage of the Employee Retirement Income 
Security Act in 1974 to the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and as 
recently as the enactment of the SECURE Act in 2019.

    TIAA believes these past retirement improvement efforts have been 
successful in helping many American workers. In my testimony, I will 
share why we believe more can and should be done to improve the 
retirement system in a meaningful and holistic way. We are excited to 
see the ongoing cooperation between the Senate and the House to enact 
additional comprehensive retirement improvements, as evidenced by this 
hearing today at the same time the House is advancing its own package 
of bipartisan retirement savings enhancements. More broadly, I am here 
to ask Congress to help foster innovation and provide additional tools 
to help more Americans attain a financially secure retirement.
          Providing Lifetime Income is Part of TIAA's Mission
    Over its century-long history, TIAA's mission has always been to 
aid and strengthen the institutions and individuals it serves by 
providing financial products that meet their needs. We keep our clients 
at the center of everything we do, managing their retirement savings 
with a long-term perspective in mind to help them achieve financial 
well-being throughout their lifetime. In fact, we are proud to say that 
we have paid out more than $500 billion in benefits to our clients 
since 1918, money they worked hard to save to help them attain a secure 
retirement.

    Our past experience informs our current efforts to further 
strengthen the retirement savings system for the next 100 years. While 
many aspects of the existing retirement system have been successful at 
providing financial security, we can still take steps to improve and 
enhance it. In this regard, three key areas of focus would help improve 
retirement security for all Americans: (1) expanding access to lifetime 
income solutions; (2) increasing access to retirement savings plans; 
and (3) enhancing retirement savings rates. My testimony today will 
focus on these three policy goals and the specific actions that 
Congress can take to help more Americans gain access to a secure 
financial future and retire with dignity.
         Recommendation #1: Improving Access to Lifetime Income
    Our Country's voluntary retirement savings system has changed over 
time but continues to offer a robust and effective structure to support 
workers in retirement. Over the years, the workplace retirement system 
has largely shifted away from defined benefit (DB), or pension, plans 
that provide employees with a guaranteed stream of income for life, to 
a defined contribution (DC) plan structure, which allows employees to 
set aside a portion of their salaries to fund their retirement needs in 
tax-deferred accounts. To help increase savings, employers often make 
contributions on behalf of their employees. To put some numbers behind 
this shift, in 1975, private-sector DB plans had a total of 27.2 
million active participants, and private-sector DC plans had 11.2 
million active participants. \1\ In 2019, the most recent year for 
which there is data, private-sector DB plans had 12.6 million active 
participants, and private-sector DC plans had 85.5 million active 
participants.
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    \1\  A Visual Depiction of the Shift from Defined Benefit (DB) to 
Defined Contribution (DC) Pension Plans in the Private Sector, 
congressional Research Service, December 27, 2021.

    Thus, the retirement system has generally shifted from one much 
more focused on income in retirement (DB plans) to one that is designed 
more to focus on accumulation of assets (DC plans). While there are 
benefits to each of these approaches, the shift in focus from 
guaranteed income to accumulation has inevitably had implications for 
individual retirement savers. The key implication is that investment 
risk has shifted from the employer (through managing a pension fund) to 
the individual saver. Americans now need to be much more thoughtful and 
proactive in how they plan to make the savings they have worked so hard 
to build last throughout their retirement, which in some cases could be 
30 or more years. This challenge becomes even more important when we 
consider that Americans face a projected $4 trillion retirement income 
gap, \2\ and more than 40 percent of households are forecast to exhaust 
their savings during their retirement years. \3\ If we fail to address 
this retirement income gap, not only will this shortfall have a severe 
impact on the quality of life in retirement, but it could also have a 
devastating impact on our economy.
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    \2\  VanDerhei, Jack, EBRI Retirement Security Projection Model 
(RSPM)--Analyzing Policy and Design Proposals, EBRI, No. 451, May 31, 
2018.
    \3\  https://www.ebri.org/content/retirement-savings-shortfalls-
evidence-from-ebri-s-2019-retirement-security-projection-model.

    Practical and readily achievable policy solutions could help 
address this retirement income gap and encourage innovative solutions 
focused on both increasing accumulations and providing improved access 
to guaranteed income solutions within the current DC retirement system. 
The SECURE Act included several important provisions aimed at improving 
access to annuities--the only products that can provide guaranteed 
income in retirement. Chief among these were the improvements to the 
annuity provider selection safe harbor, which boosted employer 
confidence in including annuities as retirement plan investment options 
by clarifying their obligations when selecting an insurance company to 
provide those guaranteed income solutions. There are, however, some 
additional steps that can be taken to further improve access to and 
utilization of annuities on retirement plan menus, including 
improvements to the rules governing what types of investments employers 
can default their employees into, to optimize retirement outcomes for 
American workers.
  Addressing the QDIA Rules to Increase Access to Guaranteed Lifetime 
                                 Income
    Over 15 years ago, Congress passed the landmark Pension Protection 
Act (PPA) of 2006, which focused on leveraging automatic features such 
as automatic enrollment (to increase participation rates), automatic 
escalation (to increase savings rates), and automatic investment 
selection (to enhance default investment options for long-term 
retirement savings returns). The PPA required the Department of Labor 
(DOL) to establish rules for enhanced default investment options that 
became what are now known as qualified default investment alternatives 
(QDIAs).

    The DOL's QDIA rules provide employers a safe harbor to default 
their employees into certain investment vehicles. Among the 
requirements that must be met to comply with the QDIA rules is that 
employees be able to access to their investments ``not less frequently 
than once within any three-month period.'' DOL's QDIA rules established 
this requirement for periodic liquidity, which has effectively limited 
the types of investments plan sponsors choose as QDIAs. Specifically, 
this liquidity requirement has created a barrier for inclusion of 
certain annuities--including those that would be most beneficial to 
retirement investors and retirees--that have liquidity limitations that 
do not meet the QDIA requirements.

    Annuities have been shown to significantly improve outcomes for 
retirees and are increasingly being recognized by plan sponsors as an 
important plan feature. According to our research, 38 percent of 
employers believe that the feature most lacking in their plans is 
access to guaranteed lifetime income. \4\ The absence of guaranteed 
lifetime income is problematic, as 35 percent of plan sponsors say the 
primary purpose of retirement plans is to provide employees secure 
income in their retirement years (versus 20 percent who say they are a 
vehicle to help employees save/accumulate and 45 percent who say both 
have equal importance). \5\ Further, multiple studies across our 
industry have consistently found that 70-85 percent of employees think 
guaranteed income is the most important component of a quality 
retirement program. In one survey, 78 percent of employees said they 
would move some or all money from their plans to guaranteed income 
options if given the appropriate opportunity. \6\ Despite the wide 
recognition of the importance of guaranteed lifetime income, plan 
sponsors are discouraged from including the most effective lifetime 
income options, such as fixed annuities with delayed liquidity 
features, as part of a default investment because of the current QDIA 
regulations.
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    \4\  TIAA 2022 Retirement Insights Report.
    \5\  TIAA 2022 Retirement Insights Report.
    \6\  2021 Retirement Confidence Survey, EBRI.

    The DOL's QDIA rules have, however, had a positive impact to the 
extent that more savers who do not play an active role in managing 
their retirement investments (the majority of savers) have invested in 
more diversified and risk-appropriate portfolios. This has been 
accomplished through the use of target-date funds (TDFs)--diversified 
investment vehicles that meet the QDIA liquidity requirements. TDFs 
handle a range of investment decisions many savers simply would not 
otherwise make or feel they have the expertise to make (e.g., 
establishing the appropriate mix of stocks and bonds, value and growth 
stocks, international and domestic investments). As a result, TDFs have 
become the QDIA of choice--76 percent of DC plan sponsors elect to use 
the QDIA safe harbor default their participants into a TDF. \7\
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    \7\  PLANSPONSOR 2020 DC Plan Benchmarking report.

    However, because of the limitations of the QDIA regulations, 
current TDFs have not been able to innovate to address the range of 
risks that savers face during their 30 or more working and saving 
years, and then during their potentially 30 or more years in retirement 
(e.g., market risk, longevity risk, inflation risk, interest rate risk, 
and cognitive risk). Guaranteed lifetime income options can help 
address these risks and make TDFs a more comprehensive retirement 
security solution, addressing both the need to accumulate assets and 
the need to ensure those assets last throughout retirement. It is 
particularly noteworthy that, according to one study, 64 percent of 
participants already assume that their TDF will provide guaranteed 
income in retirement. \8\
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    \8\  Investor Testing of Target Date Retirement Fund (TDF) 
Comprehension and Communication, submitted by Siegel & Gale LLC to the 
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. February 2012.
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        The Lifetime Income for Employees Act Offers a Solution
    The QDIA rules have had a powerful shaping effect on the retirement 
market but have unfortunately not evolved with the changing retirement 
landscape to enable plan sponsors and retirement investors to avail 
themselves of the best available options. It is time to modernize the 
QDIA rules to expand the choices plan sponsors have when designing 
default investments so they can provide retirement investors with a 
solution that both helps them accumulate savings and ensures those 
savings will be guaranteed to last them the rest of their lives.

    Accordingly, TIAA strongly supports the Lifetime Income for 
Employees Act (H.R. 6746). This bipartisan legislative proposal, 
introduced by House Education and Labor Committee members Rep. Don 
Norcross (D-NJ) and Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), would amend the DOL's QDIA 
regulations to allow a default investment to include a guaranteed 
lifetime income component with liquidity features that do not meet the 
current regulations as part of a broader QDIA investment. Under the 
proposed legislation, participants would receive multiple notices to 
ensure they understand the liquidity features and would have additional 
time--180 days--to opt out of the investment should they wish to do so. 
It is also important to emphasize that, despite the liquidity features 
of any already invested dollars that individual investors may have been 
defaulted into by their plan sponsors, investors would always retain 
the ability at any point in time to direct future investments into any 
investment choice on a plan menu.

    From TIAA's perspective, there are several benefits to having an 
annuity component that has limited liquidity in a QDIA. First, it 
provides for higher returns than a liquid version because the 
contributions can be invested for the long-term, like a DB or pension 
plan. This long-term investment translates, in most cases, to a 10 
percent-15 percent increase in the participant's balance in the annuity 
at the time of retirement. Another way a sponsor can view the limited 
liquidity guaranteed contract is as if a DB plan is sitting on a DC 
plan chassis: contributions made to the annuity grow over time with 
less leakage or a reallocation of investments to options that are not 
in the best interest of a participant. Finally, based on our 
experience, participants do not typically seek to withdraw 
contributions to annuities. The withdrawal rate on TIAA's liquid 
annuities has remained well under 5 percent since 2008, including 
during volatile market cycles, improving investment outcomes as savers 
remain invested and avoid harmful market timing.

    Finally, this legislation would not mandate that default 
investments include a guaranteed lifetime income component with delayed 
liquidity features. The Lifetime Income for Employees Act would only 
expand the options available to plan sponsors, guided by their 
fiduciary duty, in their selection of an appropriate QDIA for their 
employees. For plan sponsors looking to reestablish the guaranteed 
income features that were a hallmark of DB pensions, this proposed 
change would give them a much-needed tool to help them do just that for 
their workers.
    Recommendation #2: Increasing Access to Retirement Savings Plans
    For individuals to have access to retirement savings and lifetime 
income, they must first have access to a retirement savings plan. 
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), one-third of private 
industry workers did not have access to employer-provided retirement 
plans in March 2021. Almost 50 percent had access only to DC plans. 
Additionally, BLS found that 52 percent of those working for a company 
with fewer than 50 employees did not have access to a retirement plan. 
\9\ In a similar study, only 54 percent of families headed by prime-age 
workers (age 32-61) participate in any kind of retirement plan, down 
from 60 percent in 2001. \10\ According to the Center for Retirement 
Research, millions of Americans are not offered, or are not 
participating in, tax-advantaged savings and investment options through 
their employer. In fact, only 54 percent of white workers participate 
in a retirement plan, and the numbers drop to 46 percent for Black 
Americans and 34 percent for Latino Americans. In most cases, people 
without access to employer plans work for small businesses, which can 
further exacerbate the racial and gender gaps in retirement access.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\  TED: The Economics Daily, 67 percent of private industry 
workers had access to retirement plans in 2020, BLS, March 1, 2021.
    \10\  Monique Morrissey, The State of American Retirement Savings--
How the shift to 401(k)'s has increased gaps in retirement preparedness 
based on income, race, ethnicity, education, and marital status, 
Economic Policy Institute, December 2019.

    One of the biggest deterrents to small businesses adopting 
retirement plans has been the cost of starting and maintaining the 
plan, as well as handling its ongoing administration. According to a 
Pew Research Center study, employers that do not offer a retirement 
plan pointed to the financial cost and organizational resources needed 
to start a plan as barriers. \11\ Another study indicated that 50 
percent of employers stated that cost was the primary reason for not 
starting a plan. \12\ Therefore, reducing the administrative burden for 
employers would remove a significant barrier preventing employers from 
starting a retirement plan. We appreciate the Committee looking at ways 
to help plan sponsors ease their retirement plan administration 
burdens, especially for smaller plan sponsors that may not have a 
benefits office or that have a single employee responsible for all 
human resource functions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\  PEW Research Center, Employer Barriers to and Motivations for 
Offering Retirement Benefits--Insights from Pew's International survey 
of small businesses, June 21, 2017.
    \12\  16th Transamerica Retirement Survey, 2015.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
          403(b) Multiple Employer Plans/Pooled Employer Plans
    The SECURE Act took steps to address these concerns by removing 
some regulatory barriers that would make it easier for employers--
especially small employers--to overcome these deterrents by leveraging 
economies of scale and joining together under a single retirement plan. 
This concept, known as multiple employer plans (MEPs) or pooled 
employer plans (PEPs), has been and will continue to be instrumental in 
helping people working for smaller employers save in an employer-
sponsored retirement plan. Prior to enactment of SECURE, in a survey of 
small employers, 66 percent said they would be likely to consider a 
MEP. \13\ Unfortunately, 403(b) plans were inadvertently left out of 
the MEP and PEP changes included in the SECURE Act. The Securing a 
Strong Retirement Act and RISE Act in the House, as well as the 
Improving Access to Retirement Savings Act--a Senate bill co-sponsored 
by Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) along with Senators Chuck Grassley (R-
IA) and James Lankford (R-OK)--would allow for 403(b) plans to be 
offered as PEPs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \13\  Empower Institute, Open MEPs: A Promising Way to Narrow the 
Coverage Gap, December 2018.

    We welcome this change because, at TIAA, we have seen the benefits 
that a similar arrangement can provide to plan sponsors and their 
employees. We have been encouraged by how some of our 403(b) clients 
have been able to leverage the existing rules to come together using a 
``common bond'' to improve upon their existing retirement plans. Given 
the financial struggles that some smaller institutions we serve are 
facing in the wake of the pandemic (e.g., decreased student enrollment, 
staff reduction), being able to join a single plan has allowed them to 
provide a more robust retirement plan than would have been possible on 
their own. They have reduced their administrative burdens and lowered 
costs while expanding plan services to their employees (e.g., expert 
investment selection). One of the most notable examples of this success 
is how a group of private colleges recently came together to offer 
their employees across numerous institutions a better selection of 
investment options and more guidance on retirement planning. 
Implementation of the provisions being considered today would not only 
increase access to retirement plans for employees but also allow our 
clients to have improved opportunities to band together to leverage 
economies of scale and access services that they would not be able to 
do as a single plan.
                 Expanding Long-Term Part-Time Coverage
    Another helpful proposal, which is in Chair Murray's Women's 
Retirement Protection Act, would further expand access to plans for 
part-time employees. I want to commend Chair Murray for her tireless 
work to expand access for long-term part-time employees, employees who 
work more than 500 hours over three consecutive years, to their 
employer's plan. This provision was included in the SECURE Act, and the 
current proposal to accelerate access for long-term part-time employees 
after two rather than 3 years would be a sensible extension. This 
proposal has already been included in the bipartisan legislation being 
considered in the House this week.
     Addressing Unnecessary or Duplicative Disclosures and Notices
    As we look to expand participation and engagement in retirement 
savings plans, we should take a close look at how we communicate with 
current and prospective retirement savers. One potential solution is to 
examine the number and types of notices and disclosures sent to 
participants. We agree with the bipartisan proposals in the Securing a 
Strong Retirement Act, the Retirement Improvement and Savings 
Enhancement Act and the Retirement Security and Savings Act that would 
require the DOL, Treasury and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation 
(PBGC) to review the current Employee Retirement Income Security Act 
(ERISA) and Tax Code reporting and disclosure requirements and make 
recommendations to simplify, consolidate and standardize disclosures. 
Simplifying and streamlining required notices would reduce costs for 
current plan participants and reduce costs for new employers who are 
considering adopting a plan.

    Additionally, we also support the bipartisan proposals in the 
aforementioned bills that would lift requirements that DC plan sponsors 
continue to provide notices to unenrolled employees, other than an 
annual reminder notice of their eligibility to participate in the plan. 
Sending notices that do not apply to an employee not participating in 
the plan seems inefficient. Simplifying the notices workers receive and 
not having to send notices that do not apply to an employee who has not 
enrolled in the plan could have the added benefit of helping savers 
better understand those notices.
 Providing Incentives for Employers to Start a Retirement Savings Plan
    As stated earlier, cost is a barrier to an employer starting a 
retirement plan. Retirement proposals and policies that provide tax 
incentives, such as credits, to start a plan or incentives that help 
drive participation and increased savings could better help employees 
achieve retirement security.
         Recommendation #3: Enhancing Retirement Savings Rates
    Another important piece of strengthening our retirement security 
system is helping Americans save more. Many adults approaching 
retirement age may not be financially prepared to retire: 49 percent of 
adults ages 55 to 66 had no personal retirement savings in 2017. \14\ 
About 50 percent of women ages 55 to 66 have no personal retirement 
savings, compared to 47 percent of men. Women also lag men at the other 
end of the savings spectrum: only 22 percent of women have $100,000 or 
more in personal retirement savings compared to 30 percent of men. \15\ 
Additionally, a recent study found 1-in-4 Americans have no retirement 
savings at all, and those who are saving are not saving enough. The 
median retirement account balance for 55-to 64-year-olds in the study 
was $120,000. Divided over 20 years, that is $500 a month--hardly 
enough to support a comfortable retirement, even without factoring in 
lengthening life expectancies and rising healthcare costs. \16\ There 
are several ways this savings gap can be addressed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \14\  Brittany King, Those Who Married Once More Likely Than Others 
to Have Retirement Savings United States Census Bureau, January 13, 
2022.
    \15\  Ibid.
    \16\  https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/asset-wealth-management/
library/retirement-in-america.html.
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                           Emergency Savings
    One potential hurdle to employees saving for retirement is a 
concern about the need to access funds immediately to address short-
term financial emergencies. Saving for unexpected expenses is 
challenging. A Federal Reserve Board study from May 2021 found that 35 
percent of Americans would have trouble handling an unexpected $400 
expense. \17\ Another survey indicated that 25 percent of Americans 
have no emergency savings and that more than 50 percent have less than 
3 months' worth of expenses covered in an emergency fund. \18\ 
Individuals should ideally have at least 6 months of expenses saved in 
an emergency fund to prevent unexpected expenses from snowballing into 
greater financial hardships by relying on high-interest credit or 
retirement plan loans to cover a relatively small amount.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\  Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Report on 
the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2020 , May 2021 https://
www.Federalreserve.gov/publications/2021-economic-well-being-of-us-
households-in-2020-dealing-with-unexpected-expenses.html.
    \18\  Sarah Foster, Survey: More than half of Americans couldn't 
cover 3 months of expenses with an emergency fund, Bankrate, July 2021 
https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/emergency-savings-survey-july-
2021/.

    TIAA works with our plan sponsors to prioritize holistic financial 
wellness, with budgeting for short-term needs as a starting point of 
educational advice. We also work with participants to educate them 
about the different options available to help them avoid unnecessarily 
tapping their retirement savings. During the pandemic, Congress acted 
swiftly to enact the CARES Act to provide flexibility to those in 
financial need. When participants reached out to TIAA to take a CARES 
Act withdrawal, we were often able to discuss with them the many 
different options other than a withdrawal from their plan to help them 
meet their immediate needs without adversely impacting their long-term 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
retirement security.

    Generally, employers benefit from having numerous solutions 
available to enable them to customize how they want to help their 
employees save for emergency situations and simultaneously address 
their employees' need for retirement security. We commend the Committee 
for recognizing that emergency savings solutions can enhance retirement 
savings participation and rates. Providing employers with options to 
help them meet their employees' needs while helping minimize retirement 
plan leakage without mandating a one-size-fits-all approach is an 
appropriate way to explore solutions to the emergency savings gaps that 
many Americans face.
                      Improving the Saver's Credit
    Created more than 20 years ago, the little-known Federal Saver's 
Credit provides people with modest incomes a government match on their 
retirement contributions. The Transamerica Center for Retirement 
Studies (TCRS) polled more than 10,000 adults late last year and found 
only 48 percent were aware of the tax credit. Among those earning less 
than $50,000 annually, just 41 percent knew about the credit. Given 
that the Saver's Credit \19\ is limited and not refundable, lower-
income workers who do not end up paying taxes cannot get the match. 
This valuable tool to promote savings for those who need it most could 
be further strengthened and publicized to help those in lower income 
brackets save more. Furthermore, a refundable Saver's Credit could be 
more beneficial to employees, especially younger employees. One study 
found that a refundable Saver's Credit would play a pivotal role in 
enhancing the assets of different types of savers at all points of 
their lives assuming the refundable credit could be deposited into the 
saver's retirement account. As an example, for a young saver, the 
refundable Saver's Credit could increase their assets from $262,400 to 
$390,400. \20\ This would be a positive development for increasing 
savings for lower income individuals.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \19\  Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, Fewer Than Half 
of U.S. Workers Are Aware of a Tax Credit for Retirement Savers, 
February 2022.
    \20\  Anna Milstein and Angela Antonelli, How Universal Access and 
a Refundable Saver's Tax Credit Can Transform Retirement Savings, 
Georgetown University Center for Retirement Initiatives, August 2021. 
https://cri.georgetown.edu/how-universal-access-and-a-refundable-
savers-tax-credit-can-transform-retirement-savings/ (Young saver 
assumptions--started their account at age 25 and earned an average 
salary ($35,000) at a small employer over a 40-year career.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Encouraging Employer Match Based on Student Loan Payments
    Many younger workers are missing out on retirement savings 
opportunities because they are saddled with student loans, especially 
minorities. Black college graduates owe an average of $25,000 more in 
student loan debt than white college graduates. Four years after 
graduation, 48 percent of Black students owe an average of 12.5 percent 
more than they borrowed. Black student borrowers are the most likely to 
struggle financially due to student loan debt, with 29 percent making 
monthly payments of $350 or more. \21\ While many of these individuals 
are aware of the importance of saving for retirement, they are forced 
to prioritize student loan repayments over longer term financial goals. 
Unfortunately, by responsibly paying their most urgent debt, such 
individuals lose the benefits of compound interest that are important 
when saving for retirement in the early years of their career. 
Bipartisan House and Senate bills would allow employers to match 
employees' student loan payments with retirement-plan contributions so 
workers could keep paying down their student loan debt without 
foregoing their employers' contributions to their workplace savings 
plans. Employers, in turn, would benefit from a tax deduction for their 
contributions to the same extent they would for matching employees' 
retirement plan contributions while also creating goodwill and a 
compelling recruiting tool.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \21\  Hanson, Melanie. ``Student Loan Debt by Race'' 
EducationData.org, March 10, 2022, https://educationdata.org/student-
loan-debt-by-race.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                   Expanding Automatic Plan Features
    Automatic plan features help ensure many savers do not miss out on 
the first step to retirement savings. Auto-enrollment first gets 
employees into the plan and auto-escalation incrementally nudges them 
to save more over time. By harnessing the power of inertia, these two 
features are critical to helping workers save enough to retire with 
dignity. However, more needs to be done.

    According to the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment 
Association's (DCIIA) plan sponsor survey, auto-enrollment saw growth 
in adoption to 69 percent in 2019, up from 60 percent in 2016. \22\ 
However, that means roughly 30 percent of plan sponsors still have not 
adopted auto-enrollment. When drilling deeper into auto-enrollment by 
plan size, PlanSponsor found that only 22 percent of plans with less 
than $5 million in assets had auto-enrollment, and of those with less 
than $50 million, only 47 percent had auto-enrollment features. \23\ 
When asked, plan sponsors identified cost as one of the barriers to 
including an auto-enrollment feature in their plans. \24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \22\  Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association 
(DCIIA) Plan Sponsor Survey, April 2020.
    \23\  PlanSponsor, 2021 DC Plan Benchmarking Survey, November 2021.
    \24\  Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association 
(DCIIA) Plan Sponsor Survey, April 2020.

    The auto-escalation feature also saw a rise in adoption by plan 
sponsors, where 69 percent of plans offer auto-escalation in 2019, up 
from 50 percent in 2016. \25\ However, similar to auto-enrollment, the 
numbers vary when looking at plan size. For plans with less than $5 
million, 65 percent are defaulting participants at 3 percent of their 
salary or less. For plans that are smaller than $50 million in size, 
the number decreases to roughly 50 percent defaulting participants at 3 
percent of salary or less. \26\ To the extent that workers need to 
contribute anywhere from 10 percent-15 percent annually of their 
salary, including both employee and employer contributions, to 
accumulate sufficient retirement savings, then it could take 
participants 7 years to start contributing to the point where they are 
saving enough.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \25\  Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association 
(DCIIA) Plan Sponsor Survey, April 2020.
    \26\  PlanSponsor, 2021 DC Plan Benchmarking Survey, November 2021.

    Proposals to improve upon and encourage adoption of these automatic 
feature provisions are included in bipartisan legislation. We encourage 
Congress to continue to pursue improvements in this area consider 
include automatic plan features enhancement in legislation you are 
drafting.
                         Supporting Caregivers
    To contribute to a workplace retirement plan you need to be 
working. For numerous reasons and for varying lengths of time, 
employees occasionally must step aside from their full-time job to 
focus on the needs of a parent, a child or a spouse as a full-time 
caregiver. To help those who need to leave the workforce for these 
reasons, the majority of whom are women, Congress should move ahead 
with bipartisan proposals like the Expanding Access to Retirement 
Savings for Caregivers Act. This legislation, introduced in the House 
last year, would help those who were forced to stop saving entirely 
while they were not employed to allow them to make special catch-up 
contributions to get their retirement savings back on track.
                               Conclusion
    I commend you, Chair Murray and Ranking Member Burr, for holding 
this hearing today. It is another example of the bipartisan work being 
done to help ensure a brighter financial future for all Americans. 
Access to guaranteed lifetime income through a retirement plan is 
critical, and we believe enhancing access to the best versions of these 
products throughout the entire system is foundational. The HELP 
Committee can play a critical and much needed role to ensure the next 
round of retirement legislation will further build on that foundation 
and help plan sponsors use the power of default investments to help 
their workers obtain and maintain a guaranteed stream of retirement 
income that will last them for their entire lives.

    On behalf of the entire retirement industry, I would like to thank 
you for your commitment to improving and modernizing the current 
retirement system. And thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look 
forward to answering your questions.
                                 ______
                                 
                 [summary statement of doug chittenden]
    TIAA believes past retirement improvement efforts have been 
successful in helping many American workers. There is more that can and 
should be done to improve the retirement system in a meaningful and 
holistic way. This testimony will focus on three key policy goals that 
would help improve retirement security for all Americans.

    Expanding access to lifetime income solutions. TIAA strongly 
supports addressing regulatory barriers that currently exist that have 
effectively deterred the use of guaranteed lifetime income products in 
the default investments that employers use on their retirement plan 
menus. The Lifetime Income for Employees Act (H.R. 6746) is a 
bipartisan legislative proposal that would amend the DOL's QDIA 
regulations to allow a default investment to include a guaranteed 
lifetime income component with liquidity features that do not meet the 
current regulations as part of a broader QDIA investment. This is vital 
to addressing future lifetime income needs of retirement savers and 
help them attain financial security in retirement.

    Increasing access to retirement savings plans. The SECURE Act took 
steps to improve access to multiple employer plans (MEPs) or pooled 
employer plans (PEPs), which make it easier for employers--especially 
small employers--to leverage economies of scale and join together under 
a single retirement plan. Unfortunately, 403(b) plans were 
inadvertently left out of the MEP and PEP changes included in the 
SECURE Act. Current proposals would allow for 403(b) plans to be 
offered as PEPs. Other steps that could be taken include improving 
access to plans for long-term part-time workers, simplifying plan 
disclosures and increasing incentives for starting plans.

    Enhancing retirement savings rates. Helping savers build emergency 
savings accounts can help address the need to tap retirement savings in 
for short-term unforeseen expenses. Improving access to and usage of 
the Federal Saver's Credit can help lower income individuals build a 
retirement nest egg. Allowing employers to make matching contributions 
to a retirement plan based on their employees' student loan payments 
can help younger workers get a jumpstart on saving for retirement. 
Expanding the use of automatic plan features (auto-enroll, auto-
escalation) can help improve retirement plan participation. Policy 
makers should seek ways to help those who leave the workforce to care 
for family members catch-up on missed savings opportunities.
                                 ______
                                 
    The Chair. Thank you very much. And thank you to all of our 
witnesses today. We will now begin a round of 5 minute 
questions. I again ask my colleagues to keep track of your 
clock and stay within those 5 minutes.
    Ms. Rademacher, the Aspen Institute recently found that 40 
percent of Americans reported they would struggle to afford a 
$400 unexpected emergency, and one in four families now say 
they have no emergency savings at all.
    We can improve financial resiliency by helping Americans 
save for those emergency expenses, and it would also, of 
course, bolster retirement security because people could tap 
designated emergency savings accounts rather than take from 
their retirement accounts and put their future financial 
security at risk. How can emergency savings accounts help keep 
one's retirement accounts intact?
    Ms. Rademacher. Thank you, Senator. It is a great question. 
And there has been a number of organizations really doing some 
deep research, listening and learning about the role of 
emergency savings in short and long term financial stability. 
We certainly know from, again from the Consumer Financial 
Protection Bureau, when they look at the drivers of financial 
well-being long term, liquid savings has the highest 
explanatory value of any other facet that they looked at in 
terms of that.
    It goes to consider that when we are talking about 
expanding access to retirement savings, and we want that 
experience to be successful for individuals, that the 
concurrent ability to save for emergencies and create that 
liquid savings is important.
    We recently published, ``Principles for Design of Emergency 
Savings,'' and one of the things that is important for this 
Committee is that there are a couple of examples now of within 
plan emergency savings. It is important for behavioral--in 
terms of behavioral psychology to have a specific bucket that 
is deemed for emergency savings that is separate than your 
retirement savings, but they can work together and then ERISA 
could provide guidance to do this kind of co-location of 
accounts, sidecar accounts, if you will.
    It is true that emergency savings needs of households is--
that statistic you provided from the survey of Consumer 
Finances from the Federal Reserve is true about the lack of 
emergency savings.
    Also, as we look at post-pandemic and the experience we had 
looking at the CTC and the payments, as those have gone away, 
liquid savings becomes even more important and facilitating 
that savings automatically, like we do with retirement savings, 
there is a lot of research around the opportunity for that, 
both here in the U.S., but also in the U.K., where there is 
pilots underway to look at automatic enrollment into emergency 
savings within retirement plans.
    The Chair. Thank you very much. Mr. Koumantaros, an 
important piece of the retirement puzzle is making sure that 
those who have employer sponsored retirement accounts don't 
forget about them when they leave a job. According to the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average person holds 12 to 13 
jobs in their career, nearly half of those jobs are held from 
the ages of 18 to 24.
    If someone started saving for retirement right after 
college, the savings from that individual's first employer 
sponsored retirement account would have grown tremendously by 
the time they retire because of compound interest, and it is 
important that they remember that those accounts exist.
    Senators Warren and Daines actually have a lost and found 
bill that would create a national registry to try to help 
reconnect Americans with their retirement accounts. Can you 
talk with us about how such a registry would be beneficial for 
both plan sponsors and participants?
    Mr. Koumantaros. Of course, Chair Murray. Thank you very 
much for that question. A national registry would absolutely 
help missing--the participants locate missing retirement plan 
accounts. And we would cheerfully embrace that type of an 
approach.
    We would recommend pairing this with an employer safe 
harbor as it related to missing participants where an employer 
following the specified procedure, would be able to 
automatically distribute retirement plan accounts into, say, an 
individual retirement account in the name of that participant 
and for that participants' benefit.
    Certainly the role of Government can help to facilitate 
participants accessing those missing accounts. That safe harbor 
would be an important relief for employers today because 
currently automatic IRA distributions are limited to accounts 
of $5,000 and below. However, a necessary condition for this to 
work is also to enhance the investments within automatic IRA 
rollover accounts.
    More specifically, today, it must be invested in a capital 
preservation investment option. We would suggest following a 
defined contribution plan participant directed rules around a 
qualified default investment alternative with respect to 
automatic rollover IRAs. The combination of all of that 
legislation will lead to much better outcomes for participants.
    The Chair. Okay, thank you very much.
    Senator Burr.
    Senator Burr. To all our witnesses, thank you for being 
here. Doug, TIAA seems to increasing--be increasingly involved 
in multiple employer plans. They follow the same funding rules 
as a single employer plan, but they allow employees to band 
together to tackle the job of administrating costs--
administrating the plans and the costs. Can you talk about the 
potential of this type of plan designed to close the access in 
savings gap?
    Mr. Chittenden. Thank you, Ranking Member Burr. The ability 
for--as we have been discussing, one of the primary impediments 
that small employers face in offering retirement benefits to 
their employees is the costs of starting and maintaining a 
plan, in addition to managing it on an ongoing basis.
    The ability to band together and share those costs across 
employers is, we think, a tremendous benefit and an opportunity 
to increase participation. The rules that were made available 
through the SECURE Act were an important step forward. As my 
remarks indicated, we would like to see those rules expanded to 
include employers in the not for profit space. We have seen 
some tremendous benefits already for many of our clients.
    We have associations of small, independent colleges and now 
10 states that have come together and formed multi-employer 
plans, providing more access, better benefits, and lower costs 
to their employees by doing so. We think--so we think this 
structure offers a lot of promise and it is a great way to 
increase access to millions of Americans.
    Senator Burr. You are also supportive of action that we 
took for unrelated employers to pull together to offer a single 
retirement plan. But I understand that ensuring the provision 
captures 403(b) is important. Can you give us some examples of 
how recently enhanced law is helping clients and how an 
expansion of flexibility for 403(b) will help employers in 
teaching, medicine, and research?
    Mr. Chittenden. Yes. The rules that are--we are proposing 
would be expanded to include 403(b) plans that are currently 
available in the 401k space, provide a more flexible--provide 
for more flexible structures. Under the current rules that are 
available, the 403(b) plans in not for profit space, there 
needs to be sort of a common nexus or a common organizing group 
to bring the employers together.
    For our clients, this is typically an independent college 
association in this state or an association of independent 
schools or those types of organizations. If by liberalizing the 
rules that are applicable in the 401k world, that common nexus 
could be payroll providers, financial advisers, other entities 
that are able to share costs or bring together clients that 
they work with in a much more flexible and open way than we 
think would increase access.
    Senator Burr. Thank you. Ida, recognizing that the gig 
economy is here to stay, and we are not going to go back to a 
traditional employee, employer relationship, what can we do to 
help this universe save for retirement?
    Ms. Rademacher. Thank you, Senator. It is great question. 
We started Aspen thinking about all workers, no matter where 
they work and how they get paid, and how they are going to 
navigate increasingly complex financial life. And so the 
overall direction we need to head is that we need to find a way 
within a retirement savings system in this country for gig 
workers to be able to save as well for retirement. There are a 
couple of places to look at the moment.
    First, there is, at least in California, when some of the 
states are taking the lead on some of the retirement savings 
expansion work, some states have designed that so that all 
workers can save into those systems. And then, of course, this 
also gets to the key of the portability issue because many 
people who are working in the gig economy also have a W-2 form 
of work or are very fluid between these places.
    I do think there is incremental steps to take toward this 
piece. But of course, part of that is around the overall design 
right now of an employer based system and how to navigate that. 
I do think that the main next steps will be around thinking 
through the mechanics and the guidance for portability, and 
then thinking about how we can then leverage that new expansion 
to enable a conversation about gig workers as well.
    Senator Burr. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Senator Casey.
    Senator Casey. Chair Murray, thank you. And I thank you and 
the Ranking Member for this hearing and especially your work on 
these issues that surround retirement. I want to start with Ms. 
Rademacher, regarding a piece of legislation that I have. I 
wanted to start by noting the numbers here.
    The Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that nearly 24 million 
Americans are part time, part time workers. We know that many 
of these workers don't have access to workplace retirement 
plans due to their part time status. In fact, less than half, 
40 percent of these 24 million Americans have retirement plans 
through their employers. A much lower number than what we would 
hope.
    The SECURE Act took an important step forward by requiring 
companies to include these workers in employer sponsored 
retirement plans after 3 years, 3 years of employment. Senator 
Tim Scott and I are seeking to build upon this progress through 
our bill, the Improving Part Time Workers Access to Retirement 
Act.
    That is Senate bill 3751. This bill would require employers 
to expand retirement plan eligibility to part time workers 
after just 2 years, 2 years of employment, not three. So I 
wanted to ask you, how do you believe this legislation would 
improve part time workers' ability to both save and plan for 
their futures, particularly for lower income workers?
    Ms. Rademacher. Thank you again, Senator, for the question. 
We agree that the ability to increase the percentage of 
participants that are part time work in retirement savings is 
one of the best ways to take a next tier of progress toward an 
inclusive retirement savings system. To your point, 42 percent 
of part-time workers currently have access to a workplace 
retirement plan, compared to 81 percent of full time workers.
    By decreasing the amount of time that one would have to be 
employed with a specific employer that is going to do an 
important job in expanding who has access through the existing 
system. That is going to disproportionately help, again, women, 
people of color, and many others who choose especially and need 
especially after COVID to have flexibility and part time work 
as part of the work going forward.
    The other piece of this that opens up is, it goes to some 
of the ideas about automatic re-enrollment, which is that while 
41 percent have access right now and 81 percent have--full time 
workers do, it is a smaller percentage who actively 
participate. And there is very good reasons at any point in 
time when someone may choose not to be able to save. But to re-
scoop into that within a cycle every three or 4 years means 
that people have an ongoing opportunity to reconsider that 
option and is another way that the combination of expanding 
options for part-time workers would go further.
    Senator Casey. Thank you very much. My last questions for 
Ms. Hounsell. I want to thank you for your testimony before the 
Special Committee on Aging in January. And while bipartisan 
legislation like SECURE expanded retirement access for many 
workers, significant disparities still remain.
    These disparities are especially significant for women, as 
you have noted, who often spend time out of the paid workforce 
to serve as family caregivers, as well for communities of 
color, workers in communities of color who face systemic 
barriers to building wealth and savings. Ms. Hounsell, what 
types of retirement policies would help address these 
disparities, specifically for women and people of color?
    The Chair. Thank you, Senator, for your question. I think 
that it is difficult because caregivers, especially and so many 
other women that are working in those trying to balance their 
family lives, have very little control over their hours. And so 
what happens is the eligibility rules, I think, just keep them 
out.
    I mean, it keeps them out because of the hours, a long time 
ago, I was working with a group of retail workers out in West 
Virginia, and I had never heard about this, that so many of 
them who are part time workers would just get sent home. They 
drive in, they get there, and then they get sent home.
    They never got those hours that are required. And I think 
that is what really, that is what really stops people. So 
unless we had an auto IRA or some great plan that everybody 
could jump on, I think that is what is required.
    Senator Casey. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Murray.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Smith.
    Senator Smith. Thank you, Chair Murray and Ranking Member 
Burr. I really appreciate this hearing, and I appreciate the 
bipartisan focus on retirement security. I think it is 
important to note that we know that the typical Black and Brown 
family has significantly less wealth than a typical white 
family, and this is very true for Native families as well. And 
it is also true that retirement and pension policy is really 
complicated.
    It is complicated for policymakers. It is complicated for 
people who should be benefiting from these retirement products. 
And the details matter, right, because they can have a huge 
impact on a person's financial security and our efforts to 
address wealth inequality in our Country.
    Ms. Hounsell, I would like to bring up with you a very 
specific example of what this looks like for tribal members 
living on tribal land. So for many years, tribal courts have 
successfully handled family law cases, including native 
families, adjudicating difficult questions around custody and 
alimony and more.
    These tribal courts are often the first choice for tribal 
members who have the choice of resolving their disputes, either 
in tribal court or in state court, but they choose tribal 
court. But so here is the specific problem.
    Under current Federal law, orders from those tribal courts 
about how to allocate retirement plan assets in a divorce 
aren't recognized. Only state court decisions are recognized. 
And so what this means is that in many cases, a Native family 
needs to go to state court for relief.
    Native women, in most cases, would need to go to state 
court for relief instead of the tribal court where they reside. 
Or what often happens is that one party simply isn't able to 
access the resources that they are due from their former 
spouse's retirement plans. And more often, of course than not, 
that is a woman who is left much worse off.
    This seems like an unfair limitation on the courts of these 
sovereign tribal nations, and it hurts Native families. So Ms. 
Hounsell, can you just tell me what you think about this issue 
and how you see this issue?
    Ms. Hounsell. Well, I mean, I think QDROs--we could be here 
for hours talking about those issues. But what I remember from 
our work in New Mexico was that there was no laws sort of 
linking the tribal court with the state. And so you had to 
decide like where you would have your divorce, which could be 
harmful in many ways.
    The Retirement Equity Act of 1984 was where QDROs were 
first instituted. And I think if we are waiting for the states 
one by one to be passing laws or doing something to fix this, 
then really, we need a legislative fix, a Federal legislative 
fix.
    Senator Smith. Well, thank you. I agree with you. I think 
that sort of doing a series of one off state by state 
resolution of this just ends up creating more complexity. It is 
something that is already really hard for people to understand 
to begin with, including this Senator sometimes. I think that 
makes it more complicated. So it sounds like you would agree 
that this is an important issue, that it would be good for 
Congress to take up and try to help resolve.
    Ms. Hounsell. Yes.
    Senator Smith. Right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Let me 
just also stay with you. We were just talking about how women 
that generally face a loss of significant amounts of family 
earnings and retirement security in the face of--when they are 
confronted with a divorce.
    A lot of times current law has loopholes that allow it, one 
spouse, to transfer or even hide retirement plan funds without 
the permission of the other spouse. This is one of the reasons 
I am happy, and I am so glad to be a co-sponsor of Senator 
Murray's Women's Pension Protection Act to help address this 
unfair transfer of wealth. Could you just comment on this 
legislation and why you think it is important?
    Ms. Hounsell. Yes. I am not really familiar with that 
provision, but I do know that there is--I think there is a GAO 
report that is going to look into all of those issues. And when 
you work with women, you get everyone has a story, and anyone 
who has gone through a divorce has a story. And so I think it 
is complicated in so many ways that we really have to make sure 
that we are taking a close look at what the solutions are for 
it.
    Senator Smith. Yes. Thank you so much. I think this is 
particularly a place we are being careful and thoughtful and 
diving into the details to make sure that these policies 
deliver the result that we all can probably agree on, both for 
Native women living in tribal land and also for some--Senator 
Murray's bill is a great example of that. Thank you very much, 
Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Rosen.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you, Chair Murray, for holding this 
bipartisan hearing. And to you and your staff for their work 
crafting bipartisan retirement legislation. Financial security 
for Americans and retirement should not be a partisan issue, 
and I really appreciate you bringing all of us together to 
discuss this today.
    Retirement plans that employees access through their 
employer, well they are so important to saving for retirement. 
Savings are automatically deducted from workers' paychecks, 
allowing them to benefit from tax free treatment of retirement 
savings without even thinking about it.
    That is what employer sponsored pension plans are designed 
to do. There are also optional plan design features that can 
make it even easier to build savings, such as automatic 
enrollment, where businesses can require employees to opt out, 
meaning that many more will essentially choose the default of 
opting in an automatic escalation where businesses offer their 
employees the choice of automatically increasing their 
retirement plan contributions periodically.
    But under current law, employers must pay out of pocket to 
add these optional plan design features. So for many small 
business owners who want to help their employees save more for 
retirement, the out of pocket cost of adding these features is 
too great a burden. So to address this, I am currently working 
on bipartisan legislation that would allow employers to add 
these features and have the fees for adding these optional 
design plan come from retirement plan assets, making it easier 
for small businesses to offer their workers high quality 
retirement plans.
    Mr. Koumantaros--I am sorry, I am probably not saying that 
right. But as an advisor to employer plan sponsors, can you 
give us your thoughts on why only a small number of businesses 
with fewer than 50 employees offer plan design features that 
help workers save for retirement, like auto enrollment, auto 
escalation, when the vast majority of companies with more than 
1,000 employees offer them?
    Mr. Koumantaros. Thank you, Senator, for that question. And 
you illustrated the issue here perfectly there in your remarks. 
There are challenges that small employers face with respect to 
administrative costs of plans and the complexity of plans. 
Those are the greatest barriers to new plant adoption. But even 
for those employers that adopt plans, those issues still 
persist in operation of the plan.
    There is also some issues with respect to small businesses 
engaging with their consultants, with respect to consultative 
services, that would provide for beneficial features in these 
plans, like auto enrollment and auto escalation. Those 
discretionary features today, under current law, would need to 
be paid by the employer. They cannot be treated as a planned 
expense.
    Unfortunately, many small employers simply don't have these 
conversations with their consultants. The legislative solution 
that you proposed is precisely what we need to help encourage 
these types of conversations that provide these more beneficial 
features to the small employer market segment as well.
    Senator Rosen. Well, thank you. We hope to be introducing 
that soon. But what other recommendations might you have for me 
to incentivize all businesses to offer workers competitive 
retirement plans, financial education, like you just mentioned, 
and other benefits?
    Mr. Koumantaros. Thank you, Senator. We would love to see 
considerably more expansion of worksite financial planning, and 
of course, expansion of retirement plan benefits, particularly 
in the smaller employer segment where the coverage gap is so 
pervasive. So to that end, any type of financial incentives 
that can encourage these types of plans in the form of tax 
deduction certainly and with respect to worksite financial 
planning very specifically.
    Today, any such benefits that are provided by an employer, 
while it could be deductible to the employer, would constitute 
a taxable benefit to the workers, despite the fact that 
worksite financial planning has yielded tremendous results. So 
to the extent that we could make this a nontaxable benefit to 
workers and to the extent that it could be a deductible benefit 
for employers, those incentives would provide meaningful 
results.
    Senator Rosen. Well, thank you. 99 percent of businesses in 
Nevada are small businesses, so this has a real impact on my 
state, if we are able to do that. I would like to continue on 
with you for the little time I have left.
    I appreciate your testimony and disparities in retirement 
savings, and this crisis is particularly acute in communities 
of color and impacts States like Nevada, where diversity is our 
strength. Millions of Americans, hundreds of thousands of 
Nevadans 65 and older have income below the poverty threshold, 
and Black and Hispanic seniors are even more likely to fall 
into poverty as they age.
    Ms. Hounsell, as an example, you cite statistics showing 
that Hispanic and Black women are twice as likely to age into 
poverty than white women. So I want to pick up on what Senator 
Casey asked about disparities, Ms. Hounsell. So tell us more 
why women and people of color are more likely to have lower 
savings, retirement, and how you think we here in Congress can 
address it?

    [Technical problems.]

    The Chair. You need your mic on.
    Ms. Hounsell. The coverage and the access issues, I think 
are just different. If you don't work in a place where there is 
a retirement plan and you work for a small business, often you 
just don't have access. And so even if you want to save in some 
way, how do you do that? And people always say to me, well, 
anyone can go into an institution and open up an IRA.
    But what do we have, like 11 percent, I think, that 
actually do that, and people are often doing that just with 
rollovers, not with new opening up with a new plan. So I think 
that is the problem for not just--it is for low wage workers 
generally that there isn't a way to save. I mean we are doing 
these little projects where we see people are so grateful that 
there is some way that they can sign up with the credit union 
where there is some small account to start an emergency 
savings.
    We need that. I mean, I remember the auto IRA from 20 years 
ago in a way that if employers could do that and there were 
incentives, it would just make a big difference.
    Senator Rosen. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    The Chair. Thank you.
    Senator Hickenlooper.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Great. Thank you, Madam Chair, and 
thank each of you. We have been watching on TV as we go between 
different hearings, but it is something that really is of 
crucial importance. Now, according to the Federal Reserve, 75 
percent of the bottom half of income distribution, the three-
quarters of those people in the bottom half don't have a 
retirement plan at work.
    But more concerning, according to the Federal Reserve, 
those in the bottom 50 percent by wealth have a median 
retirement savings of zero. And I think obviously, we need some 
more innovation in our retirement savings options so that 
middle Americans can participate and build wealth.
    Ms. Rademacher, I was going to ask you, since I have a long 
history with the Aspen Institute, could a retirement savings 
plan that has low costs and a Federal match, and easy to 
understand investments, could that work for this, that spectrum 
of workers?
    Ms. Rademacher. Absolutely, thank you for the question, 
Senator. The retirement savings system we have in America is, 
and as I said in my early remarks, when you look at the Survey 
of Consumer Finances in America, the two places that 80 percent 
of Americans have wealth on their balance sheets are home 
equity and retirement savings. And that is when we have a 
system that I like to say has one hand tied behind our back 
because we actually aren't engaged with over 50 million 
Americans having an opportunity to save in that system.
    Americans want the opportunity to save for their future. 
They need help in a couple of different ways. We need to remove 
the friction from that process as much as possible, which to 
the points that we have said is making automatic enrollment. 
They are making it available to any worker, no matter the size 
of the employer, or even in the long run moving this to figure 
out how we work with gig workers.
    People will save, an incentive, and understanding too, and 
this is a different jurisdiction than the HELP Committee, but 
there are differentiated ways that individuals are incentivized 
to save, right. If you are in a lower tax bracket, you get less 
of a--you get less of an opportunity to save on the dollar, 
right, than if you are in a higher tax bracket. There is lots 
of different ways that we can make this easier.
    We have seen in places where states are leading, we have 
seen in other countries, that when you have a system that is 
all in, people not only save, they take pride in that, and they 
take pride in the idea that their workers are able to save.
    I think this is a solvable problem. I think it is a problem 
that we can solve on a bipartisan basis in this country. And I 
think financial security at the household level is a critical 
piece of long term economic growth in this country.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Here, here. Mr. Koumantaros, and we 
have heard about how many small business workers have access to 
a retirement plan. And it is roughly half or maybe a little 
over half. And I know as someone who spent at least up until I 
was 50 and got the harebrained scheme that I would run in to--
run for office. But I was in small business and really saw that 
the barriers that when you are running a small business, there 
are two, the plan and trying to deal with it.
    I have been working, our offices have been working with 
Senator Collins to figure out a way to remove administrative 
obstacles for small businesses. And you have seen the 
bipartisan SECURE Act group of plans and pooled employment 
plans provisions that will allow small businesses to pull 
resources, which at the same time will use economies of scale 
and be able to set up retirement plans at much lower cost.
    How can you--how can we balance the streamlining the 
compliance procedures while still making sure we have 
sufficient oversight?
    Mr. Koumantaros. Thank you, Senator. A very important 
question. As you touched upon, group of plans offer real 
promise for small employers, as do pooled employer plans. But 
there are important distinctions between the two. The Labor 
Department recently came out with guidance with respect to 
audit requirements as it related specifically around group of 
plans, and we are concerned that may create some issues for 
smaller employers. You see, small businesses today that sponsor 
a retirement plan that is smaller in size is not subject to an 
audit requirement.
    Accordingly, their administrative costs are a bit lower. 
Now, if a small employer wishes to participate, or I should 
say, join a group, a plan which provides certain administrative 
efficiencies, a consolidated trust, same set of investments, 
single Form 5500 filing, and an audit were required on the 
entire group, then obviously that small employer would bear a 
portion of those costs.
    Our suggestion would be to free the group from any audit 
requirement. But any larger employer that otherwise would be 
subject to an audit on its own, should have an audit apply for 
that larger employer that is part of a group of plans. The 
other piece of this, though, is to ensure that the Form 5500 
filing that would be required for the group should not be held 
up merely because an audit for one of those larger employers is 
incomplete.
    Together, that combination would make a group plan still a 
very viable option for small employers in the future.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Great. Perfect. And I have other 
longer questions which I will submit in writing, but at this 
point, I will return back to the Chair. I yield back my time.
    The Chair. Thank you very much. I see Senator Braun is 
here. I will give him a minute to sit in his chair. Senator 
Braun, if you are prepared to go next.
    Senator Braun. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have been 
listening with a lot of attention on this issue. For small 
businesses, finding the proper vehicle for offering employees 
retirement, of course, is a big issue. I think it has been well 
covered so far. The biggest issue I hear--and I was one of them 
as an employer because my company had 15 employees for a long, 
long time before it was large enough to where we can afford the 
overhead of providing any type of retirement to our employees. 
And of course, to do that, of course, the larger you get, the 
easier that is to do.
    But I want to take a different track and get your opinion 
on what I hear all the time that would be a prelude to actually 
the question of retirement. In Indiana, in most states, I think 
it is 16 million jobs across the country, are in need of middle 
skilled jobs. In other words, in my own company and across the 
State of Indiana, the largest manufacturing state per capita, 
we struggle with what you need to get before you actually have 
the consideration of a retirement plan, employees.
    They are coming from our educational system that in many 
cases stigmatizes the pathway for what most businesses are 
looking, and that is a better high school education, and then 
if you need to polish life skills and what you learn in high 
school, which we did 40 years ago all the time through a 
curriculum that was more geared to that.
    Currently 529 savings plans, and I hope you are all 
familiar with that, but it enables taking funding to all the 
areas that the marketplace is currently not having a problem 
with, two and 4 year degrees. In our own state, we ship out 
more 4 year degrees than we use within it.
    Senator Klobuchar and I have a bill called the Freedom to 
Invest in Tomorrow's Workforce Act that would simply say with 
that tool, give it to businesses to train kids in those skill 
sets. That is the No. 1 issue when I am traveling in Indiana is 
workforce.
    You got to have a workforce for those high demand, high 
wage jobs before you are ever going to get into the further 
discussion of what you do with retirement. I would love to hear 
your opinion. Each one of you on whether that makes sense 
simply to take 529 savings and make it available for 
certificates in workforce training along with everything else 
it does. We can start with Mr. Chittenden down here and move 
across and tell me what you think.
    Mr. Chittenden. Thank you, Senator. And I, we totally read, 
the 529 plan structure has proven to be a benefit to millions 
of Americans, allowing them to save for college or junior 
college and even other advanced degrees.
    I think the idea of being able to expand utilization of 
those benefits for other types of education, whether it is 
offered through your employer and other places, makes a lot of 
sense because at the end of the day, that is what it is about, 
helping employees, helping Americans get ready to fulfill their 
careers and support their families. So on the face of it, it 
seems like a good idea.
    Ms. Hounsell. I am not so familiar with that, so I think I 
will pass. That sounded good to me. But other than getting 
myself stuck into something that I really don't know I have an 
opinion on, I will pass.
    Ms. Rademacher. Thank you, Senator. It is a great question. 
And I think that there is--you are raising an important issue. 
At Aspen, we talk not just about the functions of wealth in a 
household's life, but the conditions for building wealth. And 
there is a set of preconditions that a household has some level 
of routinely positive cash-flow, just like a small business 
needs that, right, for its health and vitality.
    Beyond that, households need investible sums. They need a 
way to amass those. And 529 and retirement savings are some of 
the most successful vehicles we see for how households help 
with that. One of the other functions of wealth, though, that 
we talk about is how it gives households choice and agency and 
dignity around their own path and their own way of creating 
legacy for their families.
    The idea of expanding the usage of 529s to give households 
broader choice around what are the kinds of skills they need to 
build for the jobs they see today, I think respects households. 
I also think that there is probably a lot of important research 
to go into that too before coming up with the definitive 
recommendation.
    But there are, I know, even at the state level, a few state 
treasurers that are looking at ideas like that as part of 
making 529s a more widely useful tool for households and for 
the economy.
    Senator Braun. Thank you.
    Mr. Koumantaros. I would certainly echo the sentiments that 
we just heard, providing some increased flexibility and choice 
for families as it relates to their 529 plans and how those 
funds will be used, for what purpose, and expanding educational 
programs that would qualify. Certainly seems on the surface of 
it, a very reasonable and prudent proposal.
    Senator Braun. Well, thank you. And I think the fact that 
half of the kids that pursue a 4-year degree, end up not making 
it to the finish line. A third of them that do, do not have a 
marketable degree. And of course, we need that.
    But almost all the jobs that are begging are in that 
category or needing a more polished high school education and 
access to certificates to get into the highest demand, high 
wage jobs that are out there ready to go. Hopefully, the 
Committee will take a look at that down the road, this bill 
that Senator Klobuchar and I are sponsoring, and maybe be able 
to weave it into something. Thank you so much.
    The Chair. Thank you. Senator Burr, do you have any final 
comments? I have a few more questions. Ms. Hounsell, I wanted 
to talk to you a minute. We have heard a lot about ways to help 
Americans save for retirement through defined contribution 
plans. I want to briefly shift to defined benefit plans, where 
benefits are based on the years of service, and where employers 
may offer employees ready for retirement, a lump sum amount. Or 
a lump sum payout for their pensions.
    A GAO report found companies were offering lump sum buyouts 
without key information people needed to make informed 
decisions. What sort of risks do lump sum buyouts posed to 
participants and how can proper notice and disclosures help 
them make informed decisions?
    Ms. Hounsell. I guess what I would say that the best that I 
have seen was when I was part of the ERISA Advisory Council 7 
years ago and the de-risking people came in and spoke to us so 
that we could write a report about what would be the best 
opportunities for people.
    It takes real counseling for people to understand all of a 
sudden that they are getting this huge lump sum and what that 
means. And we know that there is a recent study out from the 
MetLife that they have repeated from, I can't remember, the pot 
of gold I guess is what it is called, and shows that people 
spend their lump sum within 5 years. It is gone.
    It is often referred to, excuse me, like the lottery 
winners that all spend the money and they don't realize that it 
is going to be gone. So I think there needs to be real 
counseling and education. That seems to--what works best, and 
to find out what disclosures people need to know about.
    Like, people will think that the plan offers a certain 
benefit and then they find out that a doesn't. I think it is a 
big issue.
    The Chair. Yes, the law governing retirement or risk 
requires that notices and disclosures be understood by the 
average plan participant. And GAO separately found that nearly 
40 percent of 401k plan participants do not fully understand 
the fees they pay on their retirement accounts, which--and many 
of them aren't even aware they pay a fee at all. So maybe I can 
ask you, what can Congress do to improve transparency, so we 
increase retirement security and help people across the country 
really make the best financial decision for their family?
    Ms. Hounsell. I don't know, could you re-ask that, please?
    The Chair. What can we--what should Congress do to improve 
transparency?
    Ms. Hounsell. Well, I think there needs to be better 
disclosure is what it is so that people know exactly what they 
are getting and what it means and so that it is not a surprise 
because that is what--I have heard so many people who come and 
say my husband just got this huge lump sum, we thought it would 
be the best thing for us, and I think we made a big mistake, 
and we didn't know this or this, or we didn't know that there 
were certain benefits that we would have been able to get for a 
spouse. So I think that is the key thing, is letting people 
know and requiring that the information is there because you 
have asked for it.
    The Chair. Okay. Mr. Chittenden, you mentioned in your 
opening statement the need to offer lifetime--lifetime income 
solutions for retirees during the spin down phase of their 
retirement. I really support innovative solutions to help 
Americans plan their golden years so their retirement savings 
last as long as they are needed.
    This is an important topic, both for the individual saver 
and for the economy, and I want to make sure that we approach 
this issue from all angles. So in addition to making enrollment 
into lifetime income investment products, the default for 
employees, what other steps can we do to help retirees with 
their future income needs?
    Mr. Chittenden. Thank you, Senator. Clearly that is a--most 
Americans don't realize that their 401k plan or their defined 
contribution plan does not include a provision to provide a 
lifetime income in their retirement. So I think it is 
absolutely essential to continue to make that education.
    One of our clients, Yale University, 3 years ago, they made 
the decision to include lifetime income payments or lifetime 
annuities as part of their default option. By making that 
decision, they have increased the projected retirement income 
for each of their employees on average $6,000 a year.
    That is not just the professors, that is the maintenance 
staff, and the clerical staff, and the support workers across 
the board. That is the power of having the lifetime income 
options as part of the default option.
    Really changing the conversation from, what is my basket of 
money, how much is my accumulation, to what do I really have in 
terms of lifetime retirement income? That is the key.
    The Chair. Okay, thank you very much. And I want to thank 
all of our witnesses today and all of our colleagues who are 
here for their very thoughtful questions. I want to thank Mr. 
Koumantaros, Ms. Rademacher, Ms. Hounsell, and Mr. Chittenden.
    Thank you all for coming and sharing your advice and 
expertise today. I am actually very excited to roll out what I 
have been working on with Senator Burr soon, which addresses a 
lot of the issues that were talked about today, and I believe 
our discussion here will help us strengthen all of the bills 
that we are putting together.
    I just want to note that I especially appreciate the 
discussion about the need to add lifetime income into defined 
contribution plans so people can be sure their retirement 
assets will last. And I hope we can include ideas that achieve 
the right balance here in our legislation.
    For any Senators who wish to ask additional questions, 
questions for the record will be due in 10 business days, April 
12th at 5 p.m. The Committee will meet next Tuesday, April 5th, 
for a hearing on reauthorizing Food and Drug Administration 
user fees. Committee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:26 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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