Senate should show commitment to retirement security and pass SECURE

American workers need action now, not election-season delays

At the end of May we saw an important step in the journey toward pension reform.

By a nearly unanimous vote of 417-3, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act. It’s the first major move on retirement legislation in more than a decade – since the Pension Protection Act of 2006.

SECURE could help millions of American workers meet their retirement goals by increasing access to workplace retirement plans. Its highlights include allowing unrelated small employers to band together to achieve economies of scale and lower their costs when sponsoring workplace retirement plans, which would expand tax credits that reduce costs for small employers while encouraging investment options that provide a lifetime income stream.

We applaud House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass) and ranking member Kevin Brady (R-Texas) for putting aside partisan politics and taking a stand for retirement security.

Now we need the Senate to take the next step and approve these long-overdue reforms.

To be clear, there is very little in SECURE that could be considered controversial. While we have noted in the past that certain provisions could be modified, this is not the time to let perfect become the enemy of good.

SECURE’s genesis was a bill first introduced in the Senate back in 2016, the Retirement Enhancement Security Act (RESA). RESA was the result of a bipartisan working group and was approved by the Senate Finance Committee by a unanimous vote. RESA has and still does enjoy strong support on both sides of the aisle, and SECURE incorporates the vast majority of RESA’s reforms.

The House has done its part.

The longer we wait, the greater the risk that this important legislation will get bogged down in election-year politics. It’s time for the Senate to show their commitment to retirement security and American workers. It’s time for the Senate to pass SECURE.