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RETIREMENT SECURITY MATTERS
A forum for retirement innovation information sharing
focused on states, supporters, and service providers.
Vol 66 | November 17, 2022
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Greetings! Lisa, welcome to Retirement Security Matters – where we talk about retirement readiness innovation by the public sector, private sector, and policy organizations. | |
To us here in the US, Happy Almost 🦃Thanksgiving! … and a thank you note from us to you. Let us give you a little break between email and making your friends-and-family plans to catch up on the world of retirement security. It’s cold here – grab your pumpkin spice and nestle in:
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Leaning into Latinx – we can do better – what we learned in the great PR
- We have fresh State Auto IRA metrics
- Key updates from California, Delaware, Maine, New Mexico, and Oregon
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Joel Metlen invites you to think about social determinants of health and well being
- We keep your brain spicy with Hot Sauce, Cool Stuff
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PIX of the week! – some sunshine and a soliloquy from a 500-year-old town
| Comments or content suggestions? We welcome both. Have something about your program you’d like to share? We are all ears. | |
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RSM wants your support! Be seen here.
Click here for more information.
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Leaning into Latinx: 4 ways to be more effective
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The Honorable Kathleen Kennedy Townsend keynotes UnidosUS’ 2022 Workforce Summit, Puerto Rico. Ms. Townsend is the Secretary’s Representative on Pensions and Retirement at the Department of Labor where she is leading the Retirement Campaign for President Joe Biden and Secretary Marty Walsh.
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It was our pleasure to join the UnidosUS team at their annual Workforce Development Summit, this year hosted in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (also known as Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico).
Yes, we were excited to go to PR, home to a great deal of history and some pretty incredible people, music, food, and grit, and a place we’d never been.
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But we digress just a little. Our mission was to join the Honorable Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in a UnidosUS workshop: Boosting Latinx Retirement Security. Ms. Townsend is the Secretary’s Representative on Pensions and Retirement at the Department of Labor where she is leading the Retirement Campaign for President Joe Biden and Secretary Marty Walsh; she’s been on the speaker’s circuit across the US raising awareness on a range of topics related to retirement security, including workplace access, emergency savings, baby bonds, refundable Saver’s Credit, and lifetime income.
Going in, Townsend confirmed this would not be the usual retirement-hyper-focused event. Instead, it was an opportunity to talk with regular folks who don’t think about retirement savings all day long.
If your world is Latinx workforce development, it’s likely that you spend a lot of time thinking about access to jobs, job security, workforce training, housing, and family financial security. But the retirement security of the communities you work with is probably just a glimmer on the radar of all the efforts you must juggle every day – if it’s visible at all.
And so the workforce community provides a good gauge by which to measure how effective communication about retirement security and savings opportunities has been – where those of us who live in this space are hitting the mark, and where we are not.
… Click here to see what we learned, including 4 ways to be more effective!
Thank you to UnidosUS for hosting an excellent, forward-looking forum, and to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and the Department of Labor for your focus on these issues.
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*Fresh!* State Auto IRA Program Metrics | |
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What’s up! Saver assets are keeping steady from our last report, up 37% year-to-date and 3.5x since December 2020. Average account balances, which dip when large volumes of new savers come on, are at $928 (in Oregon, they are $1,370).
The four programs shown here now aggregate to over 600,000 funded accounts. For comparison, funded accounts are up 40% this year so far, up 2.3x since December 2020 and up about 5.5x since December 2019.
Over 137,000 employers are now registered to facilitate a state Auto IRA program across the live state programs. Of that number, 45,000 have begin forwarding payroll contributions for savers. Another 90,000 employers are in the wings, making their way toward that threshold.
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State Facilitated Retirement Programs - Fresh Highlights | |
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California (workforce 19 million) – The CalSavers Retirement Savings Board has issued a Notification of Proposed Emergency Regulation Action to readopt emergency regulations amendments that took effect March 18, 2022. The regulations amendments changed the date that newly mandated employers are required to register with the program, and created small technical changes that improve program operations. The program also issued a new set of proposed rules with a comment period that is active through December 27, 2022.
The latest monthly CalSavers report provides more detailed program-related metrics; saver contributions through October total more than $400 million.
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Delaware (workforce 490,000) – The Delaware EARNS Program Board met on November 15, 2022. Key items on the agenda included a presentation by expert Angela Antonelli of Georgetown Center for Retirement Initiatives on best practices and lessons learned in the state facilitated retirement savings space. Topics included program management and oversight, design, implementation, cost, and employer compliance concepts. Executive Directors Michael Parker (OregonSaves) and Hunter Railey (Colorado SecureSavings) provided on-the-ground insights and addressed questions related to interstate partnerships.
The Board approved the appointment of three Committee chairs - Secretary Rick Geisenberger for Audit, Policy, and Governance; Treasurer Colleen Davis for Program & Investment; and Robert Herrera for Public Outreach & Engagement. Stay tuned for an upcoming RFP for Program Consultant and a new Executive Director Opportunity related to this Program. Here’s a good place to stay informed.
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Maine (workforce 677,000) – *Welcome* Beth Bordowitz! Beth has joined Maine’s program as its new Executive Director. Coincident with her application to the ED role, she vacated her position on the Board. This Position will be filled by legislative appointment (you can get copy of the draft minutes of the special meeting held on October 5, 2022 here). Typically the addition of an ED is a key step in enabling a state to create a formal implementation schedule. Maine’s legislation indicated a launch date of April 2023, but the date will likely be later than that, and include consideration of partnership opportunities.
As we go to press, the Maine Retirement Savings Board is meeting (November 16) to progress its next steps and program planning. Key items on the agenda include Executive Director Report, approval of Governance Policies and Employee Handbook. As well as a presentation of a preliminary Sustainability Model by expert Andrew Blevins from the Pew Charitable Trust.
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New Mexico (workforce 1 million) – The New Mexico Work & $ave Board met on November 10, 2022. The agenda included a summary report from Executive Director Claudia Armijo and the Education & Outreach Committee Report. Things are hopping in NM. The Board authorized Armijo to move forward with draft legislation for introduction in the 2023 Session; approved the plan and timeline for Rules outreach and processes related to the Work and $ave Marketplace; approved issuance of an RFP for IRA Program Administrator Services. Expect to see this RFP very shortly.
The board also addressed ratification of legislative liaison contracts, and authorization to appoint advocates for legislation endorsed by the Board.
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Oregon (workforce 2.1 million) - The OregonSaves Board met on November 15, 2022. The agenda included a summary report from Executive Director Michael Parker, audit report from Landmark, a brief update from program administrator Vestwell, third quarter program update from Deputy Director David Bell, and investment performance report from Sellwood Consulting. Materials can be requested directly from the Oregon team.
In its actions, the Board approved administrative rules; fee recommendations related to program operations (i.e., reduce by 50% the Board's $4 annual account fee + 25 basis points); and capital preservation fund policy that includes changing the “cap pres pass through period” from 90 days to 30 days. This makes the program’s incoming saver experience more similar to the experience of savers in the Illinois program, which also has a 30-day cap pres window before assets are forwarded to a saver’s target date fund. (Note that for savers who make alternate investment elections, those choices take precedence.
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C O M I N G U P
Join where you’d like, and count on us to follow these meetings for you:
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California (workforce 19.0 million) –The next meeting of the CalSavers Board is scheduled for November 21, 2022.
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Maryland (workforce 3.1 million) – The next meeting of the Maryland$aves Board is scheduled for December 12, 2022.
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Oregon (workforce 2.1 million) – The next meeting of the OregonSaves Board is scheduled for February 7, 2023.
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The Social Determinants of Health (and well-being) | |
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Later this month, I plan to attend a national convening about how we here in the US could move from focusing on purely economic indicators like GDP to outcome measures that better account for the overall well-being of individuals, families, and society. Economic opportunity and stability are critical to health and well-being, but there is so much more that people need in order to succeed and thrive.
While this seems like common sense, policy sometimes hyper focuses on just one specific area of people’s lives, ignoring everything else, as if each aspect of people’s lives exists in a vacuum.
For example, in healthcare policy, it’s tempting to just focus on improving access to high quality, affordable healthcare as the way to improve health outcomes. But people’s mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health are also dependent on so many other factors, like people’s built environment, access to education, financial stability, and connections to family, culture, and community. How hard is it to maintain or improve health if you don’t have reliable shelter, or if you have lead in your water, or if you don’t have the gas money to make it to your healthcare appointment?
In the health policy world, we refer to these other factors that impact health as the “Social Determinants of Health,”
Here are some examples of what I mean:
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We’re going to need to come together collectively, across sectors both public and private, to really move the needle in terms of overall outcomes for people. The change in focus to people’s whole well-being helps open the door to that kind of overall systems thinking and the potential for more collaboration between parts of government, community, and the private sector, which each have important roles to play in supporting what people need.
More to come! / Joel
Columnist and Senior Associate Joel Metlen is based in Oregon. Joel is a pioneer of the state facilitated retirement savings space, woven into a career of public service and innovation. At OregonSaves, Joel’s responsibilities ranged from marketing and employer engagement to operations and data analysis. You’ll see his insights from that experience, and more, here.
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A “Don’t-Miss” resource - check out the Pew Charitable Trusts’ retirement savings project newest clip on No Retirement Plan at Work? An Automated Savings Program Can Fix That.
This week! it’s DCIIA’s Academic Forum in NYC. We hope we are seeing you here as this goes to press. ICYMI, mark your calendar for next year. And, we got you! You’ll see a few tidbits in our next edition.
You’ll also like this DCIIA piece from the Retirement Research Center: When “push comes to shove,” which investment characteristics are most important to workers when saving for retirement? It’s concise, check it out. Surprisingly (or not?) a ‘steady stream of income in retirement’ beats ‘growth as markets rise’. Beats it. Lifetime income experts, are you tuning in?
From our urbane friend John Mitchem and Georgetown University’s Center for Retirement Innovation, The Future of DC Retirement Plan Design: Optimism Fueled by Recent Accomplishments and Regulatory Approach Supportive of Innovation. You’ll love this quick read highlighting both the strides we are making, and a couple of hot opportunities in front of us.
Blockchain, Baby. OK, you probably thought this was a safe space – free from crypto and blockchain! Bubble #shattered. But we think this is worth it. If gaming is the leading edge of things that really happen in fintech, and why wouldn’t it be, this piece offers a vision of a really cool world that just might have strong relevance to the retirement savings space. What if money in your life were very fungible and small bits of it could move over into your emergency+retirement savings account all the time, continuously topping you up. What if when your eyeballs were in front of online advertisers, credits (because you are a valuable entity) could flow across as tiny bits of coin that would, again, top up your emergency+retirement account. We could take this thinking a long way. Just watch the video and think about what you could make happen in your corner of the retirement savings world.
In our eyes, ears and brain. This week we enjoyed a snappy book recap from Clark Kegley. You might too. Where else will you get seven books down the hatch in less than 30 minutes?
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#nestfail. This is what it looks like … | | |
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When you try to install a Nest thermostat in your 85 year old log cabin and it’s very cold out, and in, and you are glued to the midterms reporting on TV. Let’s just say wiring was different back then. And sometimes there’s no such thing as too many layers.
In good news that’s slightly political, we like it when the legislative bodies are somewhat balanced. We think it gives folks a great opportunity to either work together or to get nothing done.
Pretty sure one of those two things will happen!
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And here’s a little soliloquy from a warmer climate, where we had an opportunity to need lots of rides back and forth between hotels. Waiting for our Uber … | |
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In Ubers we meet the locals who are, to us, as interesting as any of the formal experiences we have. Armando gives us a colorful list of the parts of Puerto Rico we should visit next time: drive to the south, where it’s dry, through the mountains, where it’s lush. On Sundays enjoy a PR “road trip” from BBQ to BBQ spot. There are great things to do in Guayama and haciendas off the beaten path. In the north there is surfing, and in the south warmth and gentler water. You can go to Vieques, and Culebra, and out to the west where things are different yet again.
We meet Leonardo, Luis, Marcial, Gerardo, Osvaldo, and Jan. One of them is very quiet, almost grumpy. Another one is solicitous: make sure you haven’t forgotten anything in the car – do you have your phone? We are recommended to good restaurants: Restaurant Raices, Pinones, Barrachina, and above all, El Jibarito, which serves “grandmother’s food.” We are told at one point, don’t get drunk and walk around Old San Juan in the dark; the driver’s advice is accompanied by a hand slicing motion. Got it. We think “don’t be an idiot” is good advice anywhere in the world we may happen to go.
For your mid-fall enjoyment, especially if it’s cold where you are, here is smorgasbord of pix from beautiful, historic, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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That’s it for this edition. ❤️ Hug your people and change the world.
If you like this piece, please stick with us. We’ll be back in about two weeks. If you don’t like it, please unsubscribe below. Comments for us? Please let us know. Want your own subscription? Request one here. All information shared is from public sources or used with express permission.
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Massena Associates provides process, policy, and implementation consulting on retirement savings programs and products.
Our clientele includes public entities, policy organizations, and private sector providers. Our specialty – efficient, targeted results. We are an active speaker on retirement security topics, including state-facilitated programs, MEPs and more.
If you’d like to explore working together, we welcome the conversation. Connect with us here, and at 339-236-0684.
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Looking for a great retirement savings innovation resource? Led by Dr. Alicia Munnell, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College develops and hosts terrific content and proprietary research related to states, financial security, social security, and more.
The Georgetown Center for Retirement Initiatives, Exec Angela Antonelli, provides excellent information on state-based and other retirement security innovation and policy.
Pew’s Retirement Savings Project studies the challenges and opportunities for increasing retirement savings and is another great resource - check out the work of John Scott and his terrific team.
If you want a great source of broad-based, consumer-focused retirement news, Jeffrey H. Snyder’s The Morning Pulse is your ticket. You can subscribe here.
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