Two days after President Barack Obama announced the establishment of MyRA accounts to help Americans without workplace retirement plans other than Social Security save for retirement, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) introduced Senate Bill 1979, to establish more ambitious USA Retirement Accounts for the same purpose.
Harkin’s USA Retirement Accounts received endorsement from several liberal retirement reform and labor groups. It faces an uncertain legislative fate.
The problem it seeks to address is real: the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 46 percent of Americans are not covered by workplace retirement plans other than Social Security, which was never intended to provide full retirement income.
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