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By Sharon Zhang / Truthout
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) is taking on the “retirement crisis” in the U.S. with a new bill aimed at guaranteeing pensions or solid retirement plans for every worker in America.
On Thursday, Sanders introduced the Pensions for All Act, which would require corporations to provide a retirement plan equivalent to or better than the pensions plan offered to members of Congress.
“If we are serious about addressing the retirement crisis in America, corporations must be required to offer all of their workers a traditional pension plan that guarantees a monthly income in retirement,” Sanders said in a statement. “And if corporations refuse to offer a decent retirement plan, their workers must be allowed to receive the same type of pension that every member of Congress receives.”
“If we can guarantee a defined benefit pension plan for members of Congress, we can and we must provide that same level of retirement security to every worker in America,” he went on.
Congress’s retirement plan, Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS), offers a far higher contribution into retirement than most employers’ retirement plans, while also giving out higher payments in retirement. Meanwhile, Congress has enabled growing inequality in retirement accounts, with research finding that the gap between the average amounts in the accounts of the top 10 percent and the working class has grown drastically in recent decades.
Research has found that pensions could play a major role in reducing poverty.
But corporations have worked to massively gut pensions. According to data from the Department of Labor, only 9 percent of workers have a pension now, compared to 44 percent of workers in 1975.
This has led to an affordability crisis for retirement-age Americans and seniors, with more than half of seniors living off less than $25,000 a year and no retirement savings. Over a fifth of seniors are living in poverty, a far worse rate than in other wealthy countries, Sanders’s office points out.
The bill, introduced to build upon Sanders’s legislation to strengthen and increase Social Security benefits, has been endorsed by several unions and progressive organizations.
“We’ve gone from being a country that promised security and dignity in old age to being a country that forces people to work until they’re in the grave,” said United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain in a statement in support of the legislation. “Pensions have long been the bedrock of retirement for working-class people, but corporate greed has eroded that foundation. The billionaire class gutted pensions in pursuit of profit, and Washington let it happen.”
Indeed, instead of making it easier for Americans to retire, Republicans have proposed raising the minimum age for benefits like Medicare and Social Security in recent years.
Meanwhile, this month, Republicans passed a bill that will slash Medicaid and other crucial anti-poverty programs, which will make it even harder for Americans to save for retirement. Right-wing figures have openly said that they are against the idea of Americans being able to retire at all, effectively saying that Americans should work until they die.
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Sharon Zhang
Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter: @zhang_sharon.