Coming Together For America’s Retirement Crisis
By Tim Hill, president of the Alliance for Prosperity and a Secure Retirement and a former director of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Pension Resources Department
One-third of U.S. voters have no retirement savings, and only 18 percent are “very confident” they will have enough money for their retired years. Four out of five are looking to the federal government to help sort this out and help people properly save for retirement. America’s retirement crisis is no secret, but it’s also no cause for panic — as long as we prioritize coming together to find solutions.
That was my takeaway from the recent Retirement Summit “Redefining Retirement: It’s All of our Work,” co-hosted by BlackRock and Bipartisan Policy Center. Hearing from business leaders, union leaders, and thought leaders trying to address the retirement crisis, build support for solutions, and put fears to rest made me optimistic we can fix this.
Public employees — my fellow firefighters, police officers, nurses, teachers, and others — rely on their public pensions for retirement security. In recent years, the investments of some pensions have been threatened by interference from politicians getting in the way of financial returns by either encouraging or discouraging investments that align with their views.
What they want depends on their politics, but when their directions steer pension investments away from simple fiduciary principles, they’re part of the retirement problem, rather than the solution. This puts them in direct conflict with the pensions’ responsibility to simply make sound investments that ensure secure retirements for the beneficiaries.