The bill could fix many retirement issues facing American workers — and given that nearly half of older workers have no retirement savings and Boomers, on average, do not have enough money saved for retirement, it could come at no better time. Although there are some key details to resolve — the House passed a version of Secure 2.0 that is separate from one the Senate has been working on, the Retirement Security and Savings Act — there are some major similarities to the laws that could benefit workers. So how would retirement savings benefit under the new bill?
The State of Retirement Savings for Americans Is Not Fabulous
The bill comes at a time when the state of retirement for Americans is, well, not great. According to 2021 data from the Natixis Global Retirement Index, 41% of respondents said they didn’t have financial security to retire, and 59% had accepted that they will have to work longer in life in order to survive retirement. Thirty-six percent of respondents believed they would never have enough money to retire. And research has shown that across generations, from Boomers to Millennials, people are not saving enough to retire anywhere near 65. Another 2021 survey of people aged between 40 and 73 found that more than half of respondents had less than $50,000 saved for retirement, almost 60% of workers were putting less than 10% of their income into retirement savings, and a third weren’t even putting aside 5%. Millennials were the worst off in the survey. In other words, retirement plans and the way employers, and the rest of us, approach them need an overhaul if any of us want to stop working at 65 to enjoy our hobbies and live comfortably in retirement. That’s where two retirement overhaul plans — the Secure Act 2.0 and the Retirement Security and Savings Act, come into play. While the Secure Act 2.0 has passed the House, the Retirement Security and Savings Act, which shares similarities with it, is being debated in the Senate, per CNBC. No matter which one passes, significant and beneficial changes could be coming to retirement in a way that could actually help people afford the end of their lives.
