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» Testimony Archive
J. Mark Iwry Testimony before the US Department of Labor Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans
September 10, 2008 click to download (39k)
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J. Mark Iwry and David C. John Testimony on Protecting and Strengthening Retirement Savings
Strategies to Reduce Leakage in 401(k)s and Expand Saving Through Automatic IRAs
Testimony before the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging click to download (195k)
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J. Mark Iwry and David C. John testimony on Pursuing Universal Retirement Security Through Automatic IRAs
Testimony before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures Committee on Ways and Means United States House of Representatives
click to download (149k)
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J. Mark Iwry and David C. John testimony on Pursuing Universal Retirement Security Through Automatic IRAs
Testimony before the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions.click to download (95k)
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Peter Orszag's testimony before the Senate Budget Committee
Peter Orszag testifies before Senate Budget and Finance committees and offers common sense policy solutions to improve American's retirement security. click to download (6229k)
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J. Mark Iwry and David John Testimony on Automatic IRAs
Pursuing Universal Retirement Security Through Automatic IRAs, June 29, 2006.
Testimony before Long-Term Growth and Debt Reduction Subcommittee, Committee on Finance, United States Senate.click to download (202k)
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Peter Orszag's Ways and Means testimony
House Committee on Ways and Means, May 19, 2005.
My testimony highlights four key policy changes to improve retirement security for middle- and lower-income households: (a) automating 401(k) plans to reduce the decision-making burden on workers, (b) implementing split tax refunds so that workers could deposit part of their tax refund into a retirement account, (c) revamping the existing Saver's Credit so that it provides a more effective and transparent matching incentive for retirement contributions, and (d) reducing the steep and confusing implicit taxes on retirement saving often imposed through means-tested benefit programs such as Food Stamps, Medicaid, and Supplemental Security Income. Both sides of the Social Security debate can embrace these common sense reforms to make the individual accounts we already have, in the form of 401(k)s and IRAs, work better. click to download (185k)
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J. Mark Iwry's Senate Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy testimony
Senate Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, April 28, 2005.
This written statement, which focuses on asset building in the context of the current retirement savings system, is organized as follows: Section I (pages 3-11, below) briefly assesses the effectiveness of the nation's private pension system in raising national savings and accumulating assets for lower-income families, and identifies several general aspects of the system that need improvement to more effectively achieve these goals. Sections II through VI outline four strategies for reform that would make the private pension system and IRAs more effective in building assets for lower-income families. click to download (765k)
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J. Mark Iwry's House Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations testimony
House Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations, April 29, 2004. This written testimony provides a brief background on defined benefit plans, pension insurance, the PBGC, and the taxpayers' investment in the private pension system, addresses what is perhaps the greatest single source of uncertainty currently affecting the future of the defined benefit plan system: how best to resolve the cash balance pension controversy, and deals with defined benefit pension funding.click to download (147k)
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Peter Orszag's Joint Economic Committee testimony
Joint Economic Committee, March 10, 2004. Mr. Chairman, my testimony this morning addresses two aspects of strengthening retirement security: why it is critical to preserve Social Security's core insurance features while reforming the program to eliminate its long-term deficit; and how we can expand retirement saving on top of Social Security.
click to download (190k)
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Peter Orszag's House Committee on Education and the Workforce testimony
House Committee on Education and the Workforce, February 25, 2004. As the baby boomer generation nears retirement, the shortcomings in the nation's upside-down system of incentives for retirement saving are becoming increasingly apparent. The existing structure is upside down for two reasons:
First, it gives the strongest incentives to participate to higher-income households who least need to save more to achieve an adequate retirement living standard and who are the most likely to use pensions as a tax shelter, rather than as a vehicle to raise saving.
Second, the subsidies are worth the least to households who most need to save more for retirement and who, if they do contribute, are most likely to use the accounts to raise net saving.
In part reflecting this upside-down set of incentives, the nation's broader pension system betrays several serious shortcomings:
Only about half of workers participate in an employer-based pension plan in any given year, and participation rates in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) are substantially lower.
Even those workers who participate in tax-preferred retirement saving plans rarely make the maximum allowable contributions. Only about 5 percent of 401(k) participants make the maximum contribution allowed by law, and only about 5 percent of those eligible for IRAs make the maximum allowable contribution.
Despite the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution plans, many households approach retirement with meager defined contribution balances. The median defined contribution balance among all households aged 55 to 59 in 2001 was only about $10,000.
click to download (205k)
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