m********a
发帖数: 1041 | 1 With all of the controversy over entitlement reform, there's one thing both
sides can agree on: Social Security alone does not provide enough money for
a comfortable retirement. For these workers, the Obama administration is
proposing automatically enrolling workers in IRAs through their employers.
California adopted a version of this last year. Democratic state Sen. Kevin
de Leon sponsored the bill to automatically enroll workers in an individual
retirement account. The inspiration, he says, was his Aunt Francisca, who's
74.
"She's my second mother. She's the woman who made me dinner and breakfast,
and she's still a housekeeper in one of the wealthiest enclaves in America,"
de Leon says. "I send her a check on a monthly basis, and she receives her
Social Security check, but it's simply not enough for her to pay the rent,
to put the food on the table, to pay for her medication."
A lot of kinks have to be worked out before California's automatic IRA goes
into effect, but basically it would work like this for companies that don't
offer private retirement plans: 3 percent of a worker's paycheck would
automatically be sent to a conservatively managed retirement fund, though
who will be in charge of it hasn't been determined yet. Employers wouldn't
have to do anything but deduct and forward the money — the same way they
handle taxes.
A worker who didn't want to participate could opt out. But that automatic
enrollment is the key, says Richard Thaler, a behavioral economist at the
University of Chicago.
"The only way most humans are able to save for retirement regularly is by
having money taken out of their paycheck before they get a chance to spend
it," Thaler says. "That is old-fashioned wisdom that is still true."
Studies back it up. When participation in a retirement plan is automatic,
more people save.
"The differences are quite dramatic. In a company that has a 401(k) plan,
most people figure out eventually that it's a good idea to join, but some
people just never get around to it," Thaler says. "If they are automatically
enrolled, signup rates are over 90 percent."
The idea for the automatic IRA has been floating around in policy wonk
circles since 2006, when it was jointly proposed by David John of the
conservative Heritage Foundation and Mark Iwry, then of the liberal
Brookings Institution and now in the Obama administration's Treasury
Department. It's been part of the Obama administration's budget every year
since he was elected. In his first term, it took a back seat to health care
changes. But at a recent congressional hearing, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew
touted the idea as a way to get people to save more.
"One way to put that carrot out there would be to have auto IRAs, where
people automatically signed up can opt out, so that people get in the
practice of saving for their retirement," Lew said. Under the administration
's proposal, employers who have been in business for at least two years and
have more than 10 workers but do not offer retirement plans would be
required to offer an automatic IRA option to employees.
Most people agree that saving for retirement is a good thing. However, Aliya
Wong, executive director of retirement policy at the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, says "creating a mandate for employers is not the right way to go."
She says there's another reason the chamber opposes the Obama administration
's proposal: It would require each employer to pick a company to manage the
IRA. She says that makes employers legally vulnerable.
"The worker 20 years down the road looks back and says, 'I don't think that
was a good investment' or 'I could have earned more.' And whether it's a
viable claim, once they bring that claim, you've already started the cost of
having to fight that," Wong says.
Nevertheless, about a dozen states have taken a look at starting automatic
IRAs. They're attractive because they're true individual retirement accounts
, not public pensions. The taxpayer is not left holding the bag. De Leon
believes it's more likely that automatic IRAs will be adopted by the states
rather than by Congress.
In Washington, D.C., "it's a little difficult to get this done right now,
and there's a lot of dysfunction there," de Leon says.
But lawmakers in Washington and in state capitals may want to see how
California's experiment works out before taking action — and the California
law probably won't take effect before early 2015. | m********a
发帖数: 1041 | 2 {{basically it would work like this for companies that don't
offer private retirement plans: 3 percent of a worker's paycheck would
automatically be sent to a conservatively managed retirement fund}}
這應該是好點子吧! 至少強迫多一點人儲蓄。放在conservatively magaged帳戶，也不
求獲利高，至少保住本金，就算因為通貨膨脹損失價值，總比一點都沒存等著賴政府好
些。 |
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