IRI VISION: A MORE SECURE RETIREMENT FOR AMERICA’S WORKERS AND RETIREES

Congress and the Trump Administration need to turn their attention to a critical financial challenge facing many Americans – retirement security.

Thanks to the Insured Retirement Institute’s (IRI) leadership and advocacy efforts, Congress took significant steps to reduce workers’ and retirees’ anxiety about their retirement financial security when it passed the SECURE Act of 2019 and the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022.

Those laws expanded access to workplace retirement plans, facilitated greater use of protected lifetime income solutions and products, provided new programs and tax incentives for small businesses to offer retirement plans to their workers, and expanded auto-enrollment in employer-provided plans, among others. The American Council of Life Insurers estimated that the SECURE 2.0 Act alone would generate as much as $80 billion in additional retirement savings.

Since then, annuity sales have broken records as consumers and financial professionals improve their knowledge and understanding of the guaranteed lifetime income and asset protection features of these critical retirement solutions.

Despite these advances, too many American workers still lack access to a workplace retirement plan, and too few retirement plans offer an annuity option that can convert a portion of savings into income that cannot be outlived.

Retirement insecurity is real. Survey after survey continues to demonstrate that America’s workers and retirees are worried about accumulating sufficient savings that will last throughout their golden years. Other research shows that workers and retirees are interested in protected, guaranteed lifetime income solutions, such as annuities.

What’s needed now is a spark to reinvigorate the retirement policy debate in Congress – a debate that should focus on ways to continue to expand opportunities to save and options to convert savings into protected, guaranteed income to last a lifetime.

To achieve this, IRI is proposing a plan consisting of bipartisan, common-sense bills and policy initiatives from our 2025 Federal Retirement Security Blueprint. These measures would serve as the nucleus for what’s included in the next comprehensive retirement legislation Congress considers.

Our plan, “A More Secure Retirement for America’s Workers and Retirees,” will build on the foundation laid by the SECURE Act and the SECURE 2.0 Act to address additional issues leading to the widespread retirement insecurity felt by workers and retirees.

Several proposals within IRI’s plan are already embedded in existing legislation, demonstrating their viability and broad, bipartisan support.

Our proposals will remove barriers that hinder retirement plans from offering lifetime income solutions, help younger workers begin saving sooner in workplace retirement plans, encourage more workers to participate in employer-provided retirement plans, and provide parity for 403(b) plan participants, among other benefits.

Retirement security legislation has a history of bipartisanship in Congress. The bipartisan proposals included in our plan will help workers and retirees build savings to generate the income they need to sustain them throughout their retirement years.

The time is right once again for Congress to take decisive action to enhance retirement security.

IRI Letter to President and Congressional Leaders