By Kenneth Corbin
Public-policy discussions about improving retirement security for American workers can rope in any number of big-picture proposals, such as Social Security reform, containing healthcare costs, and reviving defined-benefit plans that have vanished from many private-sector employers. They can also focus on narrower, more incremental, but eminently more achievable proposals.
Both ends of that spectrum received an airing at a Senate hearing Wednesday, broadly titled, "The Future of Retirement." That session is unlikely to catalyze movement toward a more progressive pay-in schedule for Social Security or an increase in the minimum wage to ensure Americans have more money available for saving (two topics endorsed by Democrats), but it did spotlight bipartisan proposals that could help improve the retirement landscape, at least at the margins.
401(k)s for u nder 21. One proposal, for example, would encourage companies offering 401(k) plans to make participation available to full-time workers 18 or older. Many businesses set a minimum age threshold for participation in a workplace plan at 21, due in part to certain auditing and testing requirements that kick in when younger workers are included. The Helping Young Americans Save for Retirement Act would relax those compliance obligations.
Chad Williams, an Edward Jones advisor and Certified Financial Planner in Ashburn, Va., was on hand to offer his firm's endorsement of that bipartisan bill, authored by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R., La.), the chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, and Tim Kaine (D., Va.).
"When I draft financial plans for clients, the difference of two or three years can be everything," Williams said. He recalled talking with an 18-year-old employee at a diner whose retirement plan Williams managed. She told him she wanted to participate but couldn't, which runs counter to the copious messaging urging people to start saving for retirement as early as possible. "As a financial planning practitioner that's really frustrating," Williams said.
The legislation aims to encourage savings rates among young people who, instead of attending college, jump into the full-time workforce right after high school. Lowering the practical threshold to 18 would bring retirement savings in line with other mile markers of adulthood, Cassidy said.
"We let people vote at 18; we let them join the military at 18. It seems like the right cutoff to me," he said. "If they're going to go straight into the workforce they ought to be able to save for retirement."
In addition to Edward Jones, businesses and groups such as LPL Financial, TIAA, and the Insured Retirement Institute (ICI) have endorsed the Cassidy-Kaine bill.
Auto reenrollment. Those two senators, who the IRI this week named its 2025 federal champions of retirement security, also teamed on the Auto Reenroll Act, which would allow businesses to automatically reenroll employees in their retirement plans who had previously opted out. The idea is to steer workers back to retirement saving who might have paused contributions due to a temporary circumstance and simply forgot to reenroll.
"This would apply the power of automatic enrollment to far more employees and help increase plan participation while preserving the ability of employees to opt out again," Williams said. "In many plans that I've taken over you would be shocked at how many employees thought they were enrolled and they were not."
Williams also spoke approvingly of proposals to help people who left the workforce to care for a family member catch up with their retirement savings, but refused to opine on the larger policy questions, twice telling lawmakers he would "stay in my lane" and only address issues that come up in his work as a financial planner.
One of those comments came in an illustrative exchange with Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), eliciting mild laughter from the dais:
Sanders: Mr. Williams, do you think it's OK that somebody who makes $50 million contributes the same amount to Social Security as somebody who makes $176,000?
Williams: Ranking Member Sanders, I'm going to stay in my lane and speak from the perspective of the families I work with every day, but I can tell you that they depend on Social Security as a reliable foundation for any financial plan and that they need clarity, they need predictability and confidence that the system they pay into is going to be there in retirement.
Sanders: Right, and isn't one of the ways to make sure that their kids and they will continue to have the benefits is to lift the cap so that the wealthiest people in this country at a time of massive income and wealth inequality contribute their fair share?
Williams: As a practitioner I welcome additional tools and discussions on how to extend the longevity of Social Sec --
Sanders: Mr. Williams, you should join us up here, you sound like a good politician!
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 10, 2025 16:20 ET (21:20 GMT)
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