Republicans take aim at California's retirement dream
Nancy Harvey has a goal. "I'd like to retire before dying," she said.
Harvey, 55, has almost nothing saved for retirement. She's a child-care provider in Oakland, California, and there isn't much left over at the end of the month. "It's not a lucrative field," she said.
She was looking forward to a new way to save, courtesy of her home state's government. The California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program would create state-sponsored individual retirement accounts. Employers would be required to offer their own retirement plans or sign workers up for the voluntary IRAs. Four other states-Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, and Connecticut-are launching similar programs, also designed to make it easier to save on the job through payroll deductions.
Now, lawmakers in Washington are threatening to end the states' auto-IRA programs before they start, setting up another likely confrontation between the Trump administration and Democrat-run state governments such as California's.
Republican lawmakers and financial industry lobbyists argue that the state auto-IRA programs put an extra burden on employers, could end up charging high fees, and improperly skirt strict regulations governing retirement plans.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Republicans-take-aim-at-California-s-retirement-11038965.php
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