Increasing Retirement Income Security through Common Sense Reforms

Presented at the roundtable session, “Increasing Retirement Income Security through Common Sense Reforms,” at Older and Out of Work: Jobs and Social Insurance for a Changing Economy, the 18th annual conference of the National Academy of Social Insurance, January 19-20, 2006.

Participants: Mark Iwry, Non-Resident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution (Moderator), Cindy Hounsell, Executive Director, Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement, Eric Rodriguez, Director, National Council of La Raza. David John, Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation

Summary: This discussion explored changes that could be made to retirement savings policy to bolster retirement income security for lower- and middle-income Americans, by making it easier to save and increasing the incentives to do so. Potential changes include automating defined contribution plans, creating automatic (or universal) IRAs, changing asset tests for means-tested programs, expanding the Saver’s Credit, and providing for split income tax refunds.