WHY A CONVERSATION ON COVERAGE?
While the nation's policymakers have been focused on the long-term problems of Social Security, there is an equally challenging retirement income problem that has been largely overlooked: the failure of the private pension system to provide the majority of older Americans with a meaningful supplement to Social Security. Currently, less than one-half of the private workforce is covered by any kind of private pension or savings arrangement. dasd
The Pension Rights Center convened the Conversation on Coverage, with the support of other organizations, to spark a national dialogue on ways to increase retirement savings for low- and moderate- wage earners.
On May 11, 2007, the Conversation released its final report, Covering the Uncovered: Final Report of the Conversation on Coverage. The report includes pragmatic proposals and concepts aimed at: exploring new defined benefit plan designs, developing two new models for the delivery of guaranteed benefits; encouraging more individuals to save for retirement by developing a structural blueprint for a new government-authorized clearinghouse for portable individual accounts; and designing a framework for a new kind of multiple employer plan that would be administered by financial institutions and specifically marketed to small businesses. Read the press release.
The Conversation brings together a range of different voices to find areas of agreement and disagreement, and find possible common solutions to the coverage problem.
This web site will post up-to-date resources on the coverage debate and will become an on-line forum to facilitate ongoing dialogue. For more information about the Conversation on Coverage, this web site, or ongoing dialogue on the issue of pension rights, contact us.
Together we can help solve the coverage problem.
