Offer security for all workers
Social Security benefits average just $1,200 a month, leading many workers to rely on employer-sponsored plans such as 401(k)s to maintain their standard of living when they retire. Yet, these plans come with high fees and a complicated array of investment options, not to mention painful losses when markets decline.
To make matters worse, employers have over the past decade become less likely to offer any retirement plans at all. As a result, more and more Americans are at risk of sliding into poverty in what should be their golden years.
Here in the Big Apple, we are already seeing the early stages of this retirement crisis. The number of seniors in the city’s homeless shelters shot up 55% over the past 10 years, with half of that increase occurring in the past two years.
An innovative solution, proposed by The New School’s Dr. Teresa Ghilarducci, would have the financial professionals who invest the city’s pension funds also manage personal retirement accounts for private-sector workers.
Let financial pros manage accounts
The accounts would be funded by contributions from the employee and employer. They would have lower fees and higher investment returns than 401(k)s.
All this would be done with no cost to taxpayers. Nor would it impact public pensions. Sound too good to be true? It isn’t. While personal retirement accounts would be kept separate from assets managed for government employees, they would provide privatesector employees with access to the same lowfee, hassle-free retirement saving options.
Despite recent criticism about whether public pension benefits have been adequately funded, they have historically been able to operate at a lower cost and earn significantly higher returns than individual 401(k) accounts.
For too long, the debate about pensions has been focused on the cost of retirement benefits for public employees while ignoring the need to offer retirement security for all workers.
If we don’t help people save for retirement during their working years, we will pay for it later in an increased strain on social services. We are not, nor do we want to be, a country that lets our retirees go hungry and homeless.