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Promoting Retirement Security: Make Saving Easier & More Rewarding

William G. Gale
William G. Gale The Arjay and Frances Fearing Miller Chair in Federal Economic Policy, Senior Fellow - Economic Studies, Co-Director - Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center

February 28, 2007

The decline in “defined benefit” pension plans over the past 25 years has placed increased responsibility on workers to plan for their own retirement. And workers are feeling the pain. Many families approaching retirement age have little or no savings.

Recommendations
The next President should consider the following common-sense reforms:

  • making saving easier and less complicated possibly through automatic 401(k)s for workers at firms offering pensions and automatic IRAs for other workers
  • restructuring tax incentives for retirement saving
  • reducing implicit taxes on retirement saving

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