It’s easy to become cynical if watching Washington work (or not work, as is often the case) is your job. So forgive us for not popping a cork in celebration of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s new Personal Savings Initiative. Don’t get us wrong, it’s the right idea for the right time. We’ve been saying for a long time that our nation is facing a retirement crisis far greater than the fiscal Armageddon promised by conservatives if we refused to take their advice to slash middle-class benefits. As NCPSSM President/CEO, Max Richtman, has written before:
“Three decades of stagnant middle-class incomes, disappearing pensions, limited ability to start and maintain personal savings, and the failure of the 401K experiment lay the foundation for a retirement crisis that could further threaten millions of older Americans and their families.
According to the New School for Social Research, 75 percent of Americans nearing retirement have less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts. Almost half of middle-class workers will be poor or near poor in retirement and living on a $5-per-day food budget. The National Institute for Retirement Security reports four out of five working families have retirement savings less than one times their annual income and 45 percent do not have any retirement assets at all.
While Washington has been obsessed with the federal budget deficit, there’s been virtually no Congressional conversation about the $6.8 trillion retirement savings deficit. What will happen to the millions of American families who are ill-prepared for retirement? There’s almost no conversation about how to prevent this retirement crisis from impoverishing our families or about how younger generations will handle parents and grandparents who cannot support themselves. In spite of this current and growing retirement crisis, Social Security and Medicare, programs vital to a basic secure retirement, continue to be the favored targets for some in Congress who are determined to use benefit cuts to reduce the federal deficit.”
While the Pete Peterson funded Bipartisan Policy Center’s stated goal is to address personal savings, Social Security benefits received an inordinate amount of attention in today’s kickoff event. Not so surprising when you consider that this group is chaired by former Democratic Senator and fiscal hawk Kent Conrad and Wall Streeter/former Bush appointee, Jim Lockhart. The group is dominated by conservatives and center right former politicians and staffers, Republican political appointees, industry reps and think-tankers. As was the case with the failed Bowles-Simpson Fiscal Commission, there are a few members who break that mold and will no doubt find themselves swimming against the tide once the discussion turns to Social Security. Which the Chairmen made very clear today, it will, since “everything is on the table.”
Sound familiar? It should since that’s Washington-speak for get ready for middle-class benefit cuts — but this time they’ll be wrapped in a package to increase personal savings and strengthen retirement security? It’s no wonder we’re cynical.