Senate work session on April 8 to address retirement insecurity

OLYMPIA (April 7, 2014) — A retirement insecurity crisis is looming that threatens the middle class and people working their way into it, as more and more Americans face retirement with financial worry and hardship. In fact, one in four Washington residents between the ages of 45-64 years old has $25,000 or less in savings. In addition, 77 percent of employees who work for small businesses do not have an option to save through a workplace retirement plan.

A vast majority of these employees will never be able to save enough money to retire and will work until they die. The baby boomer generation amplifies the problem; if boomers do not have adequate retirement savings, they will become more and more reliant on state services, which in turn will cost tax payers and the state a lot of money.

To address these concerns, key legislators in the Washington State Senate have scheduled a work session on Tuesday, April 8 from 10 a.m. to noon in House Hearing Room A of the John L. O’Brien Building, 504 15th Ave. SE, in Olympia.

Participants will include Sen. Steve Conway (D-South Tacoma), Sen. Karen Keiser (D-Kent), Sen. Bob Hasegawa (D-Seattle), Sen. Maralyn Chase (D-Shoreline), Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle); plus Diane Oakley, Executive Director, National Institute on Retirement Security; Professor Teresa Ghilarducci, Director Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, The New School For Social Research; Terry Gardiner, VP Policy and Strategy, Small Business Majority; and Ingrid McDonald, Advocacy Director, AARP Washington.

For more information, contact Jon Fowler of the Senate Democratic Caucus at 360-786-7535.