[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 72 (Tuesday, May 18, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H3275-H3276]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          RETIREMENT SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight to talk about retirement 
security.
  With Americans living longer and 76 million baby-boomers soon to 
begin

[[Page H3276]]

their retirement years, solving Social Security's fiscal problems has 
to be and should be a top priority of this Congress. And I think it is. 
I think it is a top priority of the President, as well. I encourage 
that, and I hope that we come up with a Social Security solution even 
this year.
  But we also have to realize that Social Security is not going to 
solve all of our retirement security problems. Social Security was 
never meant to handle all the retirement needs of Americans and, in 
fact, for most Americans it does not. Rather, it is just one leg of a 
three-legged stool that people rely on in their retirement.
  As my colleagues can see from this chart here, Social Security, 
employer provided pensions, and personal savings is the three-legged 
stool that Americans rely on for their retirement. This is a critical 
issue for all Americans, by the way, not just those Americans who are 
in retirement but those approaching those retirement years.
  We must move forward with policies that make a real difference in 
terms of providing overall retirement security for all Americans. It 
will mean for many Americans the difference between mere subsistence or 
even poverty in retirement, on the one hand, and real prosperity and a 
comfortable retirement, on the other hand.

                              {time}  2115

  I am going to talk tonight about this leg of the retirement stool 
called employer-provided pensions. This is 401(k) plans, it is 457 
plans, 403(b) plans and other defined contribution plans. It is also 
the defined benefit plans, profit sharing plans and so on. Pension 
savings are already, as this chart shows, an important part of 
Americans' retirement security, but not all is well with our pension 
program today. Only half of all Americans, for example, even have a 
pension today.
  What really concerns me as we look from 1983 until 1993 where we 
should have made a lot of progress in this area, we have roughly stayed 
the same. Only half of Americans today in the workforce have any kind 
of pension at all. That is anything, a 401(k), a simple plan, a profit 
sharing plan, anything. To me that is a major problem, one that we 
should address here in the United States Congress, who want to give 
Americans more access to a comfortable retirement.
  This means, by the way, that about 60 million Americans have no 
pension, no private retirement savings through their employer. It is 
even worse than that really because when we look at so many of the jobs 
that are being created in our economy today, it is in the smaller 
businesses. This chart shows that among smaller companies, the 
percentage of companies that offer any kind of a pension is even 
smaller. These two blocks together would be all companies of 25 or 
fewer employees. This shows that only 19 percent of them on average 
offer any kind of a pension plan at all. Those people who work in 
smaller businesses again where most of our jobs are being created in 
our economy even have a lower possibility of having any kind of 
retirement savings through their employer.
  This is all happening, incidentally, at a time when savings in our 
country is at an all-time low. The pension plans around the country 
would normally be contributing to higher savings but they simply are 
not as accessible as they should be. This shows the U.S. personal 
savings over time starting with 1935. Actually today we are at the 
lowest level at least since the Great Depression. Some economists think 
we are at our lowest savings rate ever. That is another reason we need 
to reform our pension laws, because pensions again are a major part of 
retirement savings but also of our overall savings in this country 
which is so important. We have a plan to try to change this.
  I have come up with this plan with the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Cardin) who is also with us tonight. What this will do is it will 
provide for an increase in contribution levels and compensation levels 
and in benefit limits for all employees. It enables us, in other words, 
to let people save a lot more for their own retirement. It also takes 
out a lot of the well meaning but very restrictive rules and 
regulations that have come in place with our pension policy.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PORTMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. First let me thank the gentleman from Ohio for taking 
this time. I know we do not have much time tonight. The point that he 
makes which is so important that, yes, we need to resolve Social 
Security, that is very important. But we also need to deal with private 
retirement in our community. I congratulate the gentleman on the work 
on the legislation that he introduced. His point is so well taken, that 
we have to make it easier for small business to provide employer-
sponsored retirement plans for their employees. We have to increase the 
limits, not reduce, in which people can put away for their personal 
retirement. We must make it easier for portability in today's market 
where people change jobs to be able to combine their pension plans to 
make it easier for them. We have got to remove a lot of these 
complexities that we have put in the law that are preventing employers 
from even having pension plans to help their employees. I just really 
wanted to emphasize the point that he was making that we need to act in 
this Congress on private retirement as well as Social Security.
  Mr. PORTMAN. I thank the gentleman very much.

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