Saturday, July 23, 2016

Pallone Calls for Protection of Retirement Savings





FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 21, 2016

Pallone Calls for Protection of Retirement Savings in Edison

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ – Today, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06) held a retirement security forum with representatives of AARP New Jersey at the Edison Senior Center. Pallone discussed the importance of ensuring a Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for Seniors and protecting retirement savings through the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule. Representatives from AARP New Jersey, Edison Mayor Thomas Lankey and Assemblywoman Nancy Pinkin were among the attendees.

As the American retirement system has moved away from defined benefit pensions and toward defined contribution plans, seniors’ private investments have become all the more critical to ensuring their financial security in retirement. However, financial advisers’ conflicts of interest currently cost American families an estimated $17 billion a year. Among other challenges seniors face, they will discuss the Department of Labor’s so called “fiduciary rule” which seeks to close this loophole and ensure that financial advisers act in their clients’ best interest when they provide investment advice.

“We simply want to hold all financial advisors to the same, commonsense standard – if you provide investment advice to people, they need to be able to trust that that advice will serve their best interests,” said Pallone. “We expect the advice we get from doctors and lawyers to serve our interests, and they are both held to professional standards that make sure this is true. Why wouldn’t we expect the same from those we hire to help ensure that we are financially secure in retirement?”

Congressman Pallone also expressed his continued disappointment that there was no Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) in 2016. He has called on the Social Security Administration to reevaluate the formula it uses to determine yearly cost of living. By adopting a formula referred to as the “CPI-E’, the program could better respond to how inflation impacts seniors’ actual expenses, so that in retirement, they can continue to live in dignity and receive the benefits they have earned.


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