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30–042 PDF 2006

S. HRG. 109–638

MANAGING RETIREMENT ASSETS: ENSURING

SENIORS DON’T OUTLIVE THEIR SAVINGS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

WASHINGTON, DC

JUNE 21, 2006

Serial No. 109–25

Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Aging

(

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING 

GORDON SMITH, Oregon, Chairman 

RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama 

SUSAN COLLINS, Maine 

JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri 

ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina 

MEL MARTINEZ, Florida 

LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho 

RICK SANTORUM, Pennsylvania 

CONRAD BURNS, Montana 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas 

EVAN BAYH, Indiana 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York 

KEN SALAZAR, Colorado 

CATHERINE FINLEY, Staff Director 

JULIE COHEN, Ranking Member Staff Director 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Opening Statement of Senator Gordon Smith ....................................................... 1

Opening Statement of Senator Herb Kohl ............................................................. 2

Opening Statement of Senator Ken Salazar ......................................................... 3

Opening Statement of Senator Robert Martinez ................................................... 3

PANEL I 

Ben Stein, speaker and writer on Finance Matters, actor, and honorary 

spokesperson for the National Retirement Planning Coalition, Los Angeles, 

CA .......................................................................................................................... 5

C. Robert Henrikson, chairman of the Board of Directors, president and 

chief executive officer, MetLife, Inc., Long Island City, NY ............................. 10

Stephen P. Utkus, director, Vanguard Center for Retirement Research, Valley 

Forge, PA .............................................................................................................. 41

LeRoy Gilbertson, member, National Policy Council, American Association 

of Retired Persons, Dallas, OR ............................................................................ 62

APPENDIX 

Prepared Statement of Senator Rick Santorum .................................................... 95

Statement submitted by Walter Welsh, chairman of Americans for Secure 

Retirement ............................................................................................................ 97

Statement from Pamela Schutz, president and CEO, Retirement Income and 

Investments, Genworth Financial ...................................................................... 100

Statement submitted by American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) ................... 122

(III) 

(1)

MANAGING RETIREMENT ASSETS: ENSURING 

SENIORS DON’T OUTLIVE THEIR SAVINGS 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 2006 

U.S. SENATE, SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in room 

SD–106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Gordon H. Smith 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Smith, Martinez, Kohl, Carper, and Salazar. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GORDON H. SMITH, 

CHAIRMAN 

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We thank 

you all for coming to this important hearing. We thank our witnesses who have joined us. I will introduce them after our brief 

opening statements. 

A lot of attention has been focused lately on the need for Americans to increase their retirement savings. This attention is very important and extremely warranted in light of our Nation’s low savings rate. However, today’s hearing will address the equally important next step of managing assets and preserving your savings 

throughout retirement. 

With a huge wave of baby-boomers about to enter retirement, it 

is more important than ever that we educate Americans about the 

financial risks in retirement. Individuals face a variety of challenges in managing their assets during retirement. Americans are 

living longer than ever. Therefore, we need to stretch our retirement dollars over a longer period of time than in the past. 

Retirees also should be concerned that inflation could erode their 

purchasing power, and their investments may yield less returns 

than expected or decline in value. Large, unplanned expenses such 

as those to cover health care or long-term care also may occur at 

some point during retirement. 

Furthermore, unless the tide turns, more and more individuals 

will enter retirement with an inadequate nest egg. The personal 

savings rate in the U.S. has declined dramatically over the last two 

decades, reaching minus 1.6 percent in April. This is the 11th consecutive month that the savings rate has been negative. Clearly, it 

will be very difficult to be financially secure if you begin retirement 

with insufficient savings. 

I am currently developing legislation with Senators Conrad and 

Kerry that addresses many of these issues. Although the bill will 

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cally of women. This is because women face greater financial risks 

than men in retirement. Women tend to live longer and women receive significantly less income during retirement than men. 

My bill will increase American’s retirement savings. That is its 

point and its purpose. It also will provide tax incentives for lifetime 

payments to help seniors protect against the risk of exhausting 

their retirement income. Since one of the keys to effective management of retirement assets is knowledge, this bill also will improve 

America’s financial literacy. 

I would like to thank our witnesses for joining us this morning. 

I am eagerly anticipating the testimony that each of you will share 

and look forward to a productive dialog on how to best manage assets during retirement. 

With that, I turn to my ranking member, my friend and colleague, Senator Kohl of Wisconsin, for his opening remarks. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HERB KOHL 

Senator KOHL. We thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning 

to all who are here today. We thank our witnesses for appearing 

today to discuss how we can ensure that seniors do not outlive 

their savings. 

Of course, managing savings after retirement is an issue only if 

seniors have been able to save for retirement. Most workers don’t 

save enough to have the sorts of choices that we will discuss today. 

So we must also focus on helping workers save for retirement, as 

well as helping them manage the savings that they have managed 

to put together. 

For retirees with nest eggs, we must encourage them to strike a 

balance between annuities, which protect them from running out of 

money in retirement, and assets that preserve flexibility for unexpected expenses like costly long-term care. We need also to guard 

against scam artists who con retirees into buying unsuitable annuities. 

The largest source of annuities in the United States, of course, 

is Social Security, which pays monthly benefits for life. Unlike most 

defined benefit plans and private annuities, Social Security payments also automatically increase with inflation, which protects 

the purchasing power of retirees. So as we discuss private sector 

annuities today, we must remember that the most powerful action 

we can take to help most seniors post-retirement is to make sure 

that Social Security remains healthy and whole. 

For those who are able to supplement Social Security with a private sector annuity, employer plans offer a product at a lower cost 

than is available to an individual. Unfortunately, only 30 percent 

of defined contribution plans offer an annuity as a pay-out option. 

To boost this number, I am examining the merits of requiring defined contribution plans to offer an annuity as a pay-out option, 

just like defined benefit plans are required to do. Another possible 

approach is to offer incentives for plans to voluntarily offer an annuity. 

We need to help people understand how annuities work and what 

their benefits are. One way to educate the public on annuities is 

through hearings just like this one, and so I look forward to the 

3

testimony of our witnesses. We appreciate your attendance here 

today. 

Again, I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Kohl. 

We will next turn to Senator Salazar, of Colorado, and then Senator Martinez, of Florida. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KEN SALAZAR 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith and 

Ranking Member Kohl, for assembling this important panel of experts to deal with this important issue. I hope to learn a lot from 

all of you today because this is an important issue for all of our 

country. It is important as an issue for me in Colorado, with nearly 

half a million individuals who are now over the age of 65. 

As our country continues to grapple with the graying, and may 

I say balding of America—that is for me and Herb, Senator Kohl—

I believe must continually examine this issue, taking proactive and 

thoughtful steps to encourage American workers to plan for their 

retirement. Education is a critical component in that planning, and 

unfortunately we don’t have enough education in this country on 

financial planning for retirement. 

Research has shown that when individuals are provided financial 

education, they are better able to make smart choices on how much 

money to save and how to wisely invest their money. With advances in medicine, people are living longer than they ever have 

before. So good and wise planning is even more important. 

I am pleased that we will be hearing from companies like 

MetLife and Vanguard who are in the business of asset management and can share their ideas on how to help seniors plan for 

their future. In addition, I am interested in hearing from the 

AARP, who I worked with over the years on many issues impacting 

Colorado seniors. Whether it is choosing a Medicare Part B plan or 

deciding whether to take a lump-sum payment or to establish an 

annuity, seniors in my State most often turn to AARP for guidance. 

Finally, I am very interested to hear from Ben Stein, who uses his 

intelligence and his wit to call attention to many issues, including 

financial management and retirement security. 

Again, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, I thank you for 

holding this important hearing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Salazar. 

Senator Martinez. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ROBERT MARTINEZ 

Senator MARTINEZ. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 

for holding this hearing. You and Senator Kohl are to be commended for pointing out this very important issue. 

I would like to have my full statement in the record, if that 

would be all right, and just highlight a couple of issues that strike 

me as being particularly important for us to consider as part of 

your call. 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection. 

Senator MARTINEZ. Obviously, when more than 52 percent of 

Americans say that they are worried about their retirement, it is 

obvious that some things are of concern which are rooted in the 

4

fact that nearly a third of Americans have saved nothing for retirement last year and that one out of four Americans in their peak 

earning years saved nothing for retirement in the last year. So educating people about the need for planning and that sort of thing is 

very important. 

In addition to that, last year was the first full year since the Depression that Americans spent more than they earned, and that obviously adds to a negative savings rate for Americans. We need to 

ask ourselves would we save more if the Federal Government 

streamlined the current abundance of tax breaks for saving. A report by the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform suggests boiling all the current retirement plans into three simpler 

ones, all of which would be allowed to grow tax-free. 

It is also important that regardless of what planning may go on 

for retirement, the cost of health care is also a tremendous burden 

on seniors. The cost of health care can be a jolt for early retirees 

whose employers’ coverage ends and all of a sudden they find 

themselves having to self-provide for their insurance, either selfemployed or not employed, prior to the kicking-in of their Medicare 

benefits. So for young retirees, that is also a problem. 

We need to focus on streamlining the numerous tools currently 

available for retirement planning so that they are clear and easier 

for citizens to utilize. Americans also need to make the effort to 

educate themselves on what options are available to them. 

I look forward to hearing from the panel of experts we have 

today. I appreciate all of you being here and I look forward to the 

testimony on an issue that I know is tremendously important to 

many citizens in my State of Florida. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Martinez. 

Our first witness will be Mr. Ben Stein. He really doesn’t need 

an introduction. We have all seen him on TV, and we so appreciate 

his lending his celebrity, but more his financial acumen, to highlights this important issue for seniors. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t note ‘‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.’’ We 

have all seen that as an ad for DirecTV, but also ‘‘Win Ben Stein’s 

Money.’’ We are all interested in that, Ben, but we thank you for 

being here and helping us to understand how to develop a retirement portfolio that has some staying power. 

He will be followed by Mr. Rob Henrikson, who is the chairman, 

president and CEO of MetLife. We all know Snoopy, as well, and 

appreciate the coverage you give to all the great American sporting 

events. But far more important than that is your discussion of 

long-term longevity risk and solutions to prevent individuals from 

outliving their savings. 

He will be followed by Mr. Steve Utkus, who is a principal at the 

Vanguard Center for Retirement Research. Mr. Utkus will talk 

about how households should strike a balance between annuity income streams and asset income streams. 

Then we will hear, as the clean-up hitter here, from AARP, Mr. 

LeRoy Gilbertson. He is a member of the National Legislative 

Council of AARP. He also is a part-time resident of my home State 

of Oregon. We especially want to note that and thank you for the 

money you spend in Oregon. Mr. Gilbertson will discuss the world 

5

of retirement like it is and why we need to do a better job of helping people manage their assets in retirement. 

Mr. Stein, take it away. 

STATEMENT OF BEN STEIN, SPEAKER AND WRITER ON FINANCE MATTERS, ACTOR, AND HONORARY SPOKESPERSON 

FOR THE NATIONAL RETIREMENT PLANNING COALITION, 

LOS ANGELES, CA 

Mr. STEIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Honorable 

Senators. Thank you very much for allowing me to appear before 

you this morning. It is a great pleasure and a privilege. 

I am here as honorary spokesperson for the National Retirement 

Planning Coalition, which is a group of 13 leading financial and 

health care industry organizations concerned about retirement 

readiness. This coalition was formed, or at least it was begun to be 

formed by NAVA, a trade group for the annuity industry, and we 

are very concerned, as you are. 

In the waning months of World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was asked what we were looking for after victory. He said 

we wanted for mankind to have four freedoms. One of them was 

freedom from fear. There are many kinds of fear and it is good to 

have freedom from all of them, but one of the most gnawing kinds 

of fear we would like to be free of is fear of financial insecurity. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt also hoped for freedom from want, a glorious 

freedom which enriches the lives of all who enjoy it. 

These are great goals, but unfortunately for tens of millions of 

Americans, especially baby-boomers, there is nothing but fear of financial insecurity, nothing like freedom from fear or freedom from 

want where retirement is concerned. 

The facts are not in serious dispute. There are about 77 million 

baby-boomers. Their average savings are far below what is needed 

for a comfortable or even decent retirement. I will just go off my 

statement for a second to say that in a very rough way, the average 

baby-boomer household has about $50,000 in liquid assets and 

about $115,000 if you add in the equity in their houses. That is not 

even remotely close to enough. 

While millions are adequately prepared, tens of millions are not. 

They lack sufficient savings to provide enough income to get them 

even close to what they had as a lifestyle before they retired. Employers’ defined plans are disappearing before our eyes day by day. 

Many of them rely on growing home values to tide them over, but 

real estate markets, as we are seeing right now, can shift dramatically, and what seemed like a castle suddenly becomes an ordinary 

cottage once again. 

This problem hits women, minorities and farmers particularly 

hard, for a variety of reasons mostly having to do with various 

problems they have accumulating large savings. There is a lot of 

controversy about why this is particularly about women, but suffice 

to say whatever the reason is, women do not accumulate as much 

savings as men by a substantial margin. 

On a relative basis, women, minorities and farmers are worst 

prepared for retirement than other groups, and the other groups 

are not doing terribly well either. The basic nub of the problem is 

we have a large chunk of the population who are likely to run out 

6

of money when they are old and unable to work any longer; that 

is, they will be broke or in serious privation when they are at their 

most vulnerable and enfeebled. 

To be sure, as the Chairman and ranking member said, there is 

one form of old age insurance that is guaranteed will probably not 

run out of money, and that is Social Security. But its payments are 

for most people fairly modest and all other forms of old age insurance can run out or are subject to market fluctuations. 

It is great to have a lot of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, and cash and real estate, but most people 

don’t have those lucky charms in large quantities. People need 

about 15 to 20 times what they expect to live on when they retire. 

Very few people have 15 to 20 times what they need to live on, and 

even if they do have it, they can run out of it or it can lose value 

in market fluctuations. 

The annuity issued by large, reputable insurance companies and 

other financial entities provides income until death, and often to 

the heirs for some time after death. The annuity, whether fixed or 

variable, provides income that by definition will last until the holder of the annuity has entered a place where money is presumably 

no longer needed. If it turns out to be needed, we are all in for a 

big shock. 

Anyway, the variable annuity has the added benefit that because 

its benefits are based on the movement of stocks or bonds, or both, 

its payments can, and almost always do rise as inflation rises in 

retirement. That is the variable annuity. This is a major consideration because the recent retiree is by definition a long-term investor—something a lot of people forget. 

The day you retire at age 65, you can expect to live a good 20 

more years of life, and prices, if they rise even at the current modest rates, will come close to doubling in that period of time. They 

won’t double, but they will come close to doubling. An annuity 

whose payments rise can be a godsend. 

The problem is that at present the tax treatment of annuities 

discourages holding them. While the investments in them compound tax-free, the contingent gains from interest, dividends and 

capital gains are taxed at ordinary income rates as withdrawn. 

This is in stark contrast to other investments in non-tax-favored investments which actually can have lower tax rates than annuities, 

which are supposedly tax-favored. 

This creates the unfortunate situation we have today in which 

the best vehicle for retirement—the annuity with guaranteed payments until death—is discouraged by the tax code. The Congress 

has before it a proposal to allow a modest amount of the contingent 

payments from annuity income to escape taxation. This is the Retirement Security for Life Act and this Act would result in a tax 

saving of, say, roughly $5,000 per year for the typical American 

with a fixed annuity paying $20,000 a year of taxable income who 

is in the 25-percent tax bracket. 

It doesn’t mean a thing to very rich people, but to very ordinary 

citizens trying to cope with retirement it could make a huge difference. Fairer tax treatment of annuities could encourage an extremely responsible form of retirement planning, annuitization, 

7

along with other forms of investment. The more people who take 

that path, the better off we are as a society. 

To be sure, it is still better to have a lot of savings in many different forms—stocks, bonds, real estate, mutual funds, ETFs. But 

annuities, with their unique guarantee of lifetime income, are a 

vital part of any sensible portfolio for retirement and it makes 

sense to encourage their use. Annuities can play a powerful role in 

achieving freedom from fear and freedom from want, and this is an 

incredibly significant achievement. 

I appreciate your letting me come in to talk to you. I know you 

have a schedule that is busy on a scale most of us can’t even contemplate and I thank you for your kind attention. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Stein, and also we thank you for 

the public service you have given over the years as well. 

Mr. STEIN. My pleasure. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stein follows:]

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The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Henrikson. 

STATEMENT OF C. ROBERT HENRIKSON, CHAIRMAN OF THE 

BOARD OF DIRECTORS, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE 

OFFICER, METLIFE, INC., LONG ISLAND CITY, NY 

Mr. HENRIKSON. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of 

the Special Committee on Aging. My name is Rob Henrikson. I am 

chairman, president and CEO of MetLife, a company with a heritage, expertise and commitment around helping millions of Americans manage assets and take risks throughout all phases of a lifetime. 

Today’s hearing is focused on the very public policy crisis that 

MetLife has taken on as a priority—helping Americans take the 

uncertainty out of retirement. I applaud the Committee’s foresight 

and appreciate the opportunity you have given me to offer a few 

insights and potential solutions. 

A fundamental transition occurs at the point of retirement, the 

transition from saving to living off one’s savings. In that process of 

transition, individuals are increasingly on their own in managing 

multiple risks. My written testimony details the multiple risks one 

faces in retirement, but in the few minutes that I have now, I want 

to focus on what I believe is the most difficult task for an individual to manage in retirement, and that is longevity risk. 

The good news is that Americans are living longer than ever. The 

bad news is that many will not both live long and prosper. The culprit is the unprecedented financial burden brought about by the 

shift away from traditional safety nets that once guaranteed income for life. 

Today, most Americans realize their employer will not be providing them with a guaranteed monthly paycheck for life. Forced 

by competitive realities, many employers are discontinuing defined 

benefit pensions, sometimes exchanging them for 401(k)s. The reality is that the defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s have become the primary retirement vehicle, and that is just for people 

who have employment-based retirement plans. 

But 401(k)s, while popular, have not yet proved to be successful 

if success is measured by their ability to generate adequate income 

for a generation of retirees. As the burden of retirement has increasingly shifted to the individual, we now are asking individuals 

to do something that they have never done before—fund and finance the rest of their lives. 

To accomplish this, one’s bag of cash must last through the 20, 

30 or even 40 years that he or she will live in retirement. For past 

generations that were supported by pension plans, that job was 

handled by teams of actuaries and investment and administrative 

professionals performing services for pension plans who could leverage the law of large numbers and eliminate longevity risk for 

the individual. 

The individual attempting to manage that risk for himself attempts the near-impossible. A 65-year-old man, for example, has a 

life expectancy of 20 years, until 85. By definition, therefore, his 

chances are 50–50 that he will live beyond age 85. So a 65-yearold man who is quite disciplined, has investment expertise and 

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living his assets. For the typical couple who reaches age 65, there 

is a 25-percent chance that one of them will live to 97. 

If employee benefit trends, demographics and human nature are 

working against us, what is the answer? What steps can individuals take to ensure that their retirement savings will last as long 

as they do? Two steps can be taken that will encourage individuals 

to take action to secure their retirement income, no matter how 

short or long their future may be. 

The first step I have alluded to is to encourage individuals to 

take action and join a risk pool. This is a solution for retirees who 

have diligently saved during their working years and want income 

for life. Individuals, no matter how smart and savvy, cannot go it 

alone and efficiently draw down their savings to last the rest of 

their lives. The risk they encounter is too great, since no one knows 

how long he or she will live. 

In order to ensure that individuals do not run out of money in 

retirement, we must encourage Americans to harness the power of 

pooling that risk. The pooling concept is a powerful one. It is at the 

heart of all insurance, as well as defined benefit pension plans, and 

for that matter, as has been pointed out, Social Security. 

In the case of Social Security, longevity risk is transferred to the 

social system. In traditional pension plans, longevity risk is transferred to the plan. On his or her own, an individual can pool the 

risk by turning to an insurance company. For insurers, pooling 

mortality risk is a core competency. A retiree would need to save 

about one-third more money to even attempt to replicate the economic power of an annuity pool. Even then, there would be no 

guarantee of income for life. 

The second step I recommend is that government provide education and incentives. Tax incentives are really a form of education. 

People are quite simply more likely to consider an action if the government speaks for it as desirable public policy through positive 

tax consequence. A core proof of this is the employer-based retirement system. 

In addition, however, individuals need better retirement education and advice. The most effective venue is the workplace. Fortunately, Congress is considering taking that important action 

right now in the pension conference. We must begin with the employer-based pension system and build on it because that is the 

major source of existing retirement savings. We must educate employees to make sure that they consider taking a portion of their 

savings at retirement and turn it into guaranteed income for life 

they cannot outlive, in effect creating a personal pension plan. 

For the more than half of Americans whose only secure source 

of savings is outside the employer-based system, the same opportunity exists to join a risk pool through an annuity. The role of tax 

incentives added to education and advice can particularly help 

these Americans who can only rely on personal savings to fund the 

rest of their lives. 

In closing, we must evolve from a way of thinking in which an 

investment implies optimism and insurance implies pessimism. 

The shift from organizational to individual responsibility requires 

this transformation. This is especially true at retirement age. Consumers get that the core of a smart financial plan isn’t just about 

12

a bag of cash at retirement age. It is about ensuring they are protected from the unexpected. Americans need help identifying and 

addressing these risks. 

Recent legislation that Chairman Smith has introduced is heading exactly in the right direction. The Retirement Security for Life 

Act, S. 381, provides a good starting point to help individuals manage the risks of retirement by encouraging an income stream that 

cannot be outlived. I am pleased to point out that Senators Collins 

and Clinton on the Committee are cosponsors. I applaud these efforts and look forward to helping Congress work toward enactment, 

if not in this Congress, then in the 110th. 

I would go one step further and suggest that the retirement income crisis justifies its own package of reform proposals that address the array of risks associated with the new set of challenges 

facing the next generation of retirees. 

I want to thank the Committee again for holding this hearing 

today and for inviting me to testify. The goal of helping Americans 

achieve personal retirement income security is without question 

MetLife’s No. 1 public policy priority. 

I am happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Henrikson follows:]

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you so very much, Mr. Henrikson, for 

your testimony and, frankly, the importance of the products that 

you are offering to the American people as a way to secure their 

retirement. 

Stephen, take it away. 

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN P. UTKUS, DIRECTOR, VANGUARD 

CENTER FOR RETIREMENT RESEARCH, VALLEY FORGE, PA 

Mr. UTKUS. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member 

Kohl, for this opportunity to discuss the income and retirement 

phase with you and members of the Committee. 

I am reminded by my colleagues at Vanguard that millions of retired Americans already face these issues today of generating income and managing their savings in retirement. So this is not a 

new issue for individuals in America, but the issue obviously is 

going to take on greater urgency with the prospective retirement 

of the baby boom and the shift of the private pension system to defined contribution plans. 

At Vanguard, we have developed somewhat of an expertise in 

thinking about how people make these choices throughout their 

lives and I thought I would devote my remarks today to that perspective, thinking of a household approaching retirement and making important choices about their life savings. 

So the first decision interestingly enough has nothing to do with 

managing your life savings, but it has to do with the question of 

when to stop working. For many Americans, the real risk of the retirement phase is the risk of retiring too early. You can see this 

in our own research, at the Vanguard Center for Retirement Research. You can see it in the most recently issued Retirement Risk 

Index from the Boston College Center for Retirement Research. 

Delaying retirement by 2 or 3 years can dramatically reduce 

risks in retirement. A longer period of work means higher Social 

Security, more in savings, additional investment returns, and for 

those covered by pensions often a higher benefit. It also means 

fewer years of spending. 

In recent years, there have been many encouraging developments 

in Washington on this question of the timing of retirement. Social 

Security’s normal retirement age is rising to 67, a reflection of 

longer life expectancies. In the private sector, employers with defined benefit programs have been phasing out incentives for early 

retirement. 

The shift to defined contribution plans is also very encouraging 

in this regard. Individuals in defined contribution plans typically 

work several years later because those plans lack the sort of service-related incentives of a DB plan. Hybrid plans like cash balance 

plans probably have a similar effect to encourage people to remain 

in the workforce, although there is little research on this particular 

topic. 

So what else can you do to help in this area? One important direction is to continue support for phased retirement, which would 

enable individuals to simultaneously contribute to and withdraw 

from qualified retirement programs as they approach and enter retirement. It’s particularly important I think, to go beyond the regulations that have been recently issued by the IRS. 

42

Working for several more years is one way that the baby-boom 

generation will be able to finance its retirement—if I can counteract a bit of the gloom around the table concerning the prospective 

retirement of the baby boom. We have all heard of the traditional 

three-legged stool: Social Security, an employer pension, personal 

savings. For the baby-boom generation, there is a new three-legged 

stool. It will be Social Security, workplace and personal savings, 

and work—especially in the early years, throughout the 60’s and 

early 70’s, for those who haven’t saved for retirement. 

The second question for households facing retirement is how to 

manage your accumulated resources. We could spend many hours 

debating this issue of annuity versus asset income. Most experts 

agree that households need both. The only point is one of degree. 

What portion of your retirement should be annuitized and what 

portion should be in the form of a pool of assets? 

In recent years, if you look at the data, it appears that many 

households have voted with their feet, finding that the cost of longevity insurance is simply too high. Many private DB plans have 

introduced lump-sum payments. Few DC plan participants take up 

annuities when they are offered. In the private market for income 

annuities purchase rates are low. 

So why might households prefer asset income over annuity income in retirement? One reason simply is Social Security. Today, 

Social Security is the principal source of income and the main annuity provider for six out of ten American retirees—and a group 

which includes the most economically vulnerable retirees. Social 

Security has the benefit of being Government-guaranteed, inflationindexed and exceptionally low cost. Longevity risk is not pooled 

over a group of customers, but over the entire Nation. 

Now, a second reason that households focus on asset income is 

flexibility. A household with a pool of liquid assets is better able 

to address its unanticipated needs in retirement. These include 

major capital or consumer expenses, but they also may include outof-pocket medical costs and the costs of nursing home care. A pool 

of assets can also be invested and grow over time, offering protection against inflation. 

There is a third reason that many households are choosing asset 

income. Retirement wealth and financial literacy have been rising, 

especially over the prior generations, and households are willing to 

shoulder more responsibility for managing their assets. 

For middle-income households, the dominant asset holdings are 

bank CDs and mutual funds. Affluent households also own individual stocks, bonds, ETFs, investment real estate, and so forth. 

Households who own these assets rely on regular interest and dividend payments from these assets. As long as they do not spend 

capital, it is possible to maintain these sources of income indefinitely. In addition, the financial planning community has devised 

strategies, such as the so-called 4-percent spending rule, to help 

people draw down their savings in an orderly way. 

Just to go off my official record for a moment, last night I calculated, if you had $100,000 in life savings, what you would get 

from a variety of income-producing vehicles today in America. If 

you went to your local bank and bought 5-year CDs, you would get 

roughly $400 per month in income. A little bit of self-promotion 

43

here: with the Vanguard GNMA fund, our long-term corporate 

bond fund, you would take capital market risk, but you would have 

incomes ranging from our $400 to $500 a month. If in our partnership with AIG, you bought a 100-percent joint and survivor annuity, you would get $600. 

For many households evaluating those choices, they say they can 

receive two-thirds to 80 percent of the income of an annuity and 

retain control of their assets, versus giving up their entire life savings to a third party. This flexibility, and the choice between income levels versus flexibility, is why you see households pursuing 

asset-based income. 

So how can you help in this regard? At Vanguard, we anticipate 

a lot of innovation in this area from insurers like MetLife, banks, 

asset management firms like Vanguard, and so on. On the annuity 

side, one of the most intriguing ideas, we think, is longevity insurance, an annuity that pays a benefit only if you reach a certain age 

like age 85. Some reform could particularly help this new type of 

annuity. 

Another issue we haven’t really talked about today is the issue 

of translating home equity into a reasonable income through the 

reverse mortgage market. Eighty percent of retirees own their own 

homes and policymakers should do much more to encourage this 

market. 

Finally, on the asset income side, a topic worth considering, as 

Senator Martinez pointed out, is tax simplification broadly. The tax 

rules governing different types of accounts and plans and the rules 

governing the taxation of Social Security are simply too complex. 

One positive step would be eliminating the required minimum 

distribution rules, as the Joint Committee on Taxation has recommended. These rules were designed with the Treasury’s revenue 

stream in mind. They were not designed as a long-term pay-down 

strategy for individuals. So eliminating those rules would help retirees and they would help us as financial services firms to design 

income programs for retirees. Finally, I agree with everyone that 

efforts to encourage financial planning and investment advice make 

more sense. 

So as I mentioned at the outset, retiree households have been 

making an investment in savings choices already for many years. 

But now with the upcoming retirement of the baby boom, many 

more Americans will be called upon to make these critical choices. 

By retiring just a few years later and by using a mix of annuity 

and asset-based income programs, it is likely that many will be 

able to meet this challenge in the decades ahead. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Utkus follows:]

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Stephen. 

Gil, take it away. 

STATEMENT OF LEROY GILBERTSON, MEMBER, NATIONAL 

POLICY COUNCIL, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED 

PERSONS, DALLAS, OR 

Mr. GILBERTSON. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, I 

am Gil Gilbertson. I am a member of the AARP National Policy 

Council. I also do some private consulting work for businesses as 

it relates to their 401(k) plans. 

We commend you for convening this hearing on ensuring that retirees manage their assets over an increased life span. Planning for 

retirement should begin when an individual enters the labor force 

and it requires a savings discipline and financial astuteness that 

most people have never encountered before. Many workers retire 

ill-prepared for the challenge of preserving their assets in the face 

of a longer than anticipated life span. Even those who have 

planned well can face unforeseen obstacles. 

As a personal note, my parents and grandparents lived to be in 

their 90’s and my wife’s grandparents lived into their 90’s. So we 

are an actuarial nightmare for actuaries to try to figure out how 

long we are going to be living, plus the fact of just moving to Oregon for 6 months out of the year has probably increased our longevity with the clean air and the lifestyle in Oregon. 

AARP believes retirement security consists of four pillars: Social 

Security, pensions and savings, continued earnings, and health 

care coverage. For the vast majority, Social Security is the solid 

foundation of a secure retirement that provides a defined benefit 

which is guaranteed for life and adjusted annually for inflation. 

For many of today’s retirees, and even more tomorrow, Social Security will be their only defined benefit pension and the only income source that will not require their oversight and management. 

While Social Security faces a long-term challenge, we can make adjustments that will maintain Social Security’s lifetime income for 

future generations. 

In contrast to Social Security, the pensions and savings pillar is 

much shakier. Over half of private sector workers have no regular 

payroll mechanism to save for the future and there are challenges 

for those with a pension. 

Defined benefit pensions are declining as the number of firms 

freezing, terminating or otherwise abandoning their pension obligation rises. Many companies are converting to defined contribution 

plans that require workers to absorb more risk and responsibility. 

Defined contribution plans are subject to early withdrawals, poor 

investment decisions and a failure to annuitize account balances. 

So even if a worker has contributed to a retirement savings plan, 

it is likely to provide a much less adequate income in retirement 

than defined benefit pensions provide. 

We need to take steps to strengthen the pension pillar. This can 

include providing the necessary financial education and quality investment advice, congressional approval of automatic 401(k) features, establishing a regular payroll deduction mechanism for 

workers to save for retirement, adopting pension reforms that 

63

strengthen the defined benefit system and protect older workers, 

and extending the Saver’s Credit and making it permanent. 

The picture for personal savings and investment is even grimmer 

than for pensions. Despite being among the wealthiest groups, the 

over-age–50 cohort is not saving adequately for a retirement that 

could span three decades. Moreover, many in this group are going 

deeper into personal debt. 

In order to encourage responsible savings and investment behavior among those age 50 and over, AARP has established five principles. They are: using indexed funds, keeping the fees low in those 

funds, diversifying investments, rebalancing to stay on track, and 

finally just keep it simple. AARP is working to empower those aged 

50 and over to attain a secure financial future and to safeguard 

their assets. AARP has conducted educational programs in financial literacy and prudent investment strategies. 

The third pillar of secure retirement, earnings, is a growing 

source of income. For many, the decision to continue working is an 

economic one. Additional income and health care coverage are becoming more and more important as years go by. While many may 

want to work, the job market is difficult for those without recent 

training and current skills, and age discrimination is still prevalent 

in the workplace. 

While policymakers are encouraging later retirement through 

changes such as raising the age for collecting full Social Security 

benefits, many employers are not providing workplace accommodations, such as phased retirement or flexible work schedules, that 

would help recruit and retain older employees. 

The final pillar, health care coverage, is vital. Closely associated 

with overall health care coverage is protection against long-term 

care costs. We must do a better job of making long-term care more 

accessible, affordable and understandable. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, we have painted 

a detailed landscape of retirement so that we can better deal with 

the challenges that boomers and future retirees will face. There is 

much that can and should be done to make management of retirement assets easier. Although times have changed, Social Security 

remains the No. 1 pillar of retirement that provides a lifetime, inflation-adjusted income stream. 

I thank you for the opportunity to present AARP’s views, and I 

would be willing to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gilbertson follows:]

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Gil. Oregon once had a Governor, 

Tom McCall, who famously said, ‘‘Please visit, but do not stay.’’ It 

seems you have accepted half of his advice. You stay 6 months a 

year. You indicate that you think your longevity is on the increase 

because of that. 

I wonder, have you calculated how long you might live if you 

stayed 12 months a year? 

Mr. GILBERTSON. Well, I haven’t, but I probably would be close 

to 100 years old. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to ask you about one of the pillars you 

talked about and that is seniors working longer. It is the policy of 

the AARP to encourage seniors to work longer. Is that correct? 

Mr. GILBERTSON. That is correct, yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. If they choose to? 

Mr. GILBERTSON. If they choose to. 

The CHAIRMAN. There are significant impediments to employing 

seniors, I think you have pointed out in your testimony. Are there 

pieces of legislation that you would have us pursue to encourage 

employers to provide longevity of employment to seniors on a more 

flextime basis? 

Mr. GILBERTSON. Yes. AARP is constantly studying the issues. As 

a matter of fact, a committee that I sit on within AARP’s National 

Policy Council this summer will be studying exactly that issue as 

it relates to employment of those who are 50 and older. 

We are probably going to end up making recommendations to the 

board as it relates to strengthening those kinds of issues, plus I 

would suspect coming out of that would be ideas and suggestions 

for legislation that would also strengthen that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we would very much like to have your recommendations on that because I think one of the answers, frankly, 

to the American economy is encouraging people to work longer and 

giving them the flexibility. Obviously, it is one of the keys that you 

have identified as helping seniors to have the money they need to 

continue to live. 

Mr. GILBERTSON. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ben, you mentioned that the average senior in 

America has $50,000 of liquidity. Is that correct? Did I hear that 

correctly? 

Mr. STEIN. That is what I am told by people in a position to 

know. That is a rough number; it is a very rough number. 

The CHAIRMAN. Obviously, the answer to how much do you need 

in retirement varies with every individual, but have you heard of 

any number that seniors ought to be working for? 

Mr. STEIN. Well, the number that I always use in my calculations 

is to take what you were earning the last year before you retired, 

subtract from that the amount that you are saving, and then multiply that by roughly 15 and that is the approximate amount you 

should have. That would be a minimum amount. If you are going 

to use my colleague’s suggestion that you only withdraw 4 percent 

of your savings a year, you would need more like 20-plus times 

that amount. I think 4 percent a year might be a tiny bit conservative, but you need a heck of a lot is the short answer, and very 

few people have it. 

82

When you tell a person who earns $100,000 or $200,000 a year 

that he or she needs 15 or 20 times that amount to retire, that person gets pretty worried. Then when you say you are better if you 

have 22 or 23 times that amount to allow for inflation and to allow 

for some of the money to keep compounding and growing to offset 

inflation instead of paying it all out to yourself as you live out your 

life, people get really scared. You need an awful lot of money. 

We have many, many deficits in this country. We have enormous 

Medicare deficit, an enormous budget deficit, an enormous trade 

deficit. We also unfortunately have a very, very large deficit of 

what the baby-boomer generation should have saved compared to 

what it has saved, and that number is in the trillions of dollars. 

I once calculated that as being on the order of $15 trillion that we 

are short in savings. That is, to me, a lot of money. 

The CHAIRMAN. The multiple of 15 is the number of years that 

one could be expected to——

Mr. STEIN. No, no. That is to account for the amount of income 

you would be likely to earn, counting dividends plus capital gains 

on the amount of money you have saved. It is an awful lot of 

money and very few people are doing it, and if they did more of 

it, we would be a happier group of people. 

The CHAIRMAN. With your economist hat on, if there is one piece 

of advice you would give to every baby-boomer, what would it be? 

Mr. STEIN. Save until it hurts, and if it is not hurting, you are 

not saving enough. You know, if you are partner at Goldman 

Sachs——

The CHAIRMAN. You are going to be OK. 

Mr. STEIN [continuing]. You will probably be OK. But for most 

people, they have to save a painfully large amount. I mean, the vicissitudes of retirement are scary and if you are retiring on enough 

to live on when you are 65 and prices double by the time you are 

88, you are going to be a very sad puppy if you haven’t saved 

enough. 

Mr. UTKUS. Senator, if I could make a comment on that? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, please. 

Mr. UTKUS. I do think that the examples that Ben cites are perhaps not the appropriate ones, just given that the median household income is somewhere in the $40,000-a-year range rather than 

at $100,000 or $200,000. 

I am least concerned about the ability of six-figure families to 

save for retirement, and if they tell me that they are not saving 

enough and they are going to have to live on $50,000 a year, I am 

going to tell them they are going to be richer than 80 percent of 

retirees in America today. 

So I think if you look at the reality of retirement today—let’s forget about the baby boom—30 percent of households rely virtually 

exclusively on Social Security or supplemental security income and 

other sort of public benefits. So three out of ten households today 

have never saved in the past, and we see similar results today of 

workers. Three out of ten have less than $10,000 a year as they 

approach retirement. 

So I think it is important not to be too catastrophic about this 

because today millions of Americans are retired and three out of 

ten of them have no money but Social Security and very little in 

83

work earnings. That is the state of the world today. Then in the 

middle, there are 30 percent who rely on Social Security for over 

half of their income. So that is a pretty strong backstop for retirement security. 

Then there is the 40 percent who don’t rely on Social Security 

as their dominant income source, but I don’t know that they should 

be the appropriate focus of policymakers because they are the people with 90 percent of the assets. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Henrikson, the same question to you as to 

Ben Stein. If there was one piece of advice, I assume you would say 

take advantage of the pooling of risk and buy an annuity. Would 

that be your advice? 

Mr. HENRIKSON. Well, that could be an answer, but I think as 

you yourself, Senator Smith, said, if I recall, in your opening comments, one of the No. 1 priorities is knowledge, knowledge about 

this issue, and then within that what the power of a mortality pool 

is. 

So I am not suggesting that everybody rush out and buy an annuity, but what I am saying is that, as pointed out in terms of the 

conversation, we know that individuals may be more educated than 

they have been in the past, but they are not facile in terms of making asset allocation decisions with a pot of money to generate an 

income for the rest of their life. 

As was pointed out, you can make income last for the rest of your 

life if you don’t touch the principle. The people we are talking 

about don’t have that luxury. Maybe the Goldman Sachs partner 

can live off of clipping coupons and then leave as a legacy to their 

family or whomever the principle that they didn’t spend. But most 

people are going to have a different kind of a legacy to deal with, 

and I think the legacy that parents can leave to their children that 

they are more independent because they have an income will be extremely important. 

I think the issue is what kind of an income do they need. Beyond 

that income, they can do other things with their assets that may 

turn out to be disastrous or may turn out to be homeruns. 

I just would say one other thing. Most people in the United 

States—I believe this is true—99.44 percent, including high-income 

people, tend to make decisions about their life, about where they 

live, where their kids go to school, what kinds of vacations they 

take, when they go out to eat, and so forth and so on, based on 

their income. They don’t base it on a bag of cash, nor do they base 

it on the present value of their future income. 

So if you ask somebody what is your job worth, they are liable 

to say something like, well, what does that mean? If they think 

about it long enough, they will say, well, I am paid $50,000 a year, 

$40,000 a year or $100,000 a year, whatever the number might be. 

They don’t say the present value of my future income is ‘‘X,’’ and 

that is what we are asking them to do with this bag of cash. That 

is the present value of something and they don’t know what that 

something is. So that is really what the education has to be about. 

The CHAIRMAN. With the indulgence of my colleagues, I wonder 

if I can ask Ben to put your economist hat on and speak to the 

larger question that Robert just hit on, what is there in the American psychology that unlike many European countries, unlike 

84

China and Japan, we don’t save. Is it just a consumer mentality 

that has driven us all these years? 

Mr. STEIN. Well, if you think of it from a psychologist’s perspective, it is a very interesting thing. If you slap down a little plastic 

card, you can get a big-screen TV or a trip to the Bahamas or a 

trip to Oregon. If you take the same amount of money and put it 

in an account at Fidelity, the next thing you know it is gone. It is 

not really gone, but it seems like it is gone. It is not available. You 

can’t watch ‘‘The Ladies of Wisteria Lane’’ on it. You can’t get a 

suntan in it, so it seems to be gone. That is the way a child would 

approach it, and unfortunately we have a kind of childish mentality 

among a great many—by no means all—U.S. citizens. 

There is also another problem. Interestingly enough, savings 

rates tend to be higher during bad economic times than during 

good economic times because people get scared and concerned 

about their futures and they save more. In China, the ordinary citizen with an income of something like one-fifteenth that of the 

U.S., maybe less than that, saves roughly 40 percent of his or her 

income. In this country, which has a very, very large average income, we save on the average of a negative amount. 

So uncertainty, fear, civil war, privation, dictatorship, depression 

make people want to save in this country. Where happy times are 

here again and have been for a very long time, not for everyone, 

but for a great many people, people don’t tend to save. This is a 

happy country, and this is a happy country with a very, among all 

too many people, kind of juvenile mind set. That is not obviously 

true of everyone, but it is not a mature mind set to not save. 

The CHAIRMAN. But you wouldn’t be pushing us to adopt policies 

that brought about plagues and pestilence and depressions? 

Mr. STEIN. Well, no, I wouldn’t be pushing you to do it all this 

summer. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Senator Kohl. 

Senator KOHL. Thank you very much. Two things, to me, stand 

out as we listen to what you have said and, of course, think about 

all the accumulated knowledge that we have in this area. One 

thing is to be certain beyond question that Social Security remains 

really, strong and a foundation and a pillar of people’s ability to 

live out their retirement years. I would like your comment on that, 

particularly in light of some of the efforts that have gone on here 

to change the nature of Social Security. 

The second thing is, isn’t it true that if we were successful in 

having a society that offered the kinds of incentives and inducements to keep people working longer which you have alluded to—

if we could accomplish those two things, it would change the nature 

and the dilemma and the difficulty that we are looking at with respect to our emerging retirement population and how they are 

going to manage to survive into the future? 

If Social Security becomes bedrock and people do manage to work 

into their 70’s, given the fact that they are healthier than they 

have ever been before and have a longer life expectancy, don’t we 

need to look at all this from a different point of view, Mr. Gilbertson? 

85

Mr. GILBERTSON. Yes. Of course, AARP strongly believes in Social Security as the very foundation of retirement plan and keeping 

Social Security in a healthy situation, because as many on the 

panel have pointed out, Social Security in the future is still going 

to be an important part of anyone’s retirement plan. 

Now, regarding people working when they get older, we feel, that 

people should be able to work if they choose to. There is a differentiation between having to work and choosing to work. If we can 

reach a happy medium where we can get people to save so that 

they will understand and have a good retirement system and then 

choose to work beyond it, it may be an idealistic situation, but I 

think it is a worthy goal to be working toward. 

I managed a very large pension system before I retired and people would come in and get an estimate of what their pensions were 

going to be, and then our benefit counselors would say, ‘‘Have you 

thought about health insurance.’’ Those that were under 65, of 

course, and were not eligible for Medicare? Calculated what the 

health insurance would cost them, they would say, ‘‘Well, I guess 

I had better go home and tear up that resignation letter because 

this is just not going to work.’’ The health insurance part could eat 

up a big portion of what their pension is. So I think we have to 

have a discussion as it relates to a lot of different issues as to people working beyond their normal retirement age or when they want 

to retire. 

Mr. UTKUS. Senator Kohl, I do think that if you think carefully 

about encouraging Americans to work more, a lot of the doom and 

gloom lifts. In other words, there is the sense in which everyone 

thinks it was pre-ordained sometime by Bismark, but maybe by the 

post-World War II generation that retirement somewhere between 

62 and 65 was written in stone. But, of course, we all know that 

when Bismark created that rule, most people were dead by 65 and 

only a few annuitants lived beyond that age. 

So I think this whole notion of getting people to work later is to 

be applauded and I think there are many things that can be done 

on the benefits side to encourage that. It solves much of the retirement insecurity problem that we are worried about, not in individual cases. Obviously, in individual cases people have health 

problems and they have financial problems. But as a macro level, 

as you look at the whole economy, as you do as Senators, it solves 

a major portion of the concern that we may have. 

Then on the question of Social Security, I just think as you think 

about issues of retirement income support and the split between 

annuities and asset income, you must think about Social Security 

as a huge public benefit that, if you will think about it, in effect 

drives out the need for private annuities for many households. 

As I said, 30 percent have 90 percent of their income coming 

from Social Security. They need more assets, not more income. Another 30 percent have between 50 and 90 percent of their income 

from Social Security. You might debate some of them need perhaps 

a little bit more annuitization; maybe some don’t. Then the upper 

40 percent—well, they have all the money, so I am not really worried as much about them from an annuitization point of view. To 

me, the decision for them should be neutral. So I think that can 

help inform this decision about how you set policy in other areas. 

86

Senator KOHL. Mr. Henrikson. 

Mr. HENRIKSON. Yes. Well, starting off with Social Security, one 

of the things Stephen said in his remarks early on was that he 

mentioned that Social Security was extremely efficient. One of the 

things that makes it efficient is the fact that it has a mortality pool 

that it is part of, and without the mortality pool it would not be 

efficient. So the only comment I would make in terms of a discussion about Social Security going forward is I think it is very, very 

important to keep Social Security strong in discussions about private accounts, which in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. 

You cannot remove the mortality pool issues in Social Security 

and have it be an efficient system. So, for example, if you have a 

private account, as opposed to income, and you know what that account is and that account is something that you believe when you 

pass away you bequeath to your heirs, you have taken what we in 

the industry would call mortality gains out of the Social Security 

system. Believe me, it would not be efficient. There is no way there 

is enough money to replicate what mortality gains to the system 

provide. 

So that is the basis of what Social Security is about. We can as 

a society talk about what the liability will look like going forward 

in terms of how much it escalates in the future, what age people 

retire, and so forth. But that is the key principle that we would always, always remind people. There is a mortality pool there. If you 

break that mortality pool, it will not be an efficient system. 

Despite the fact that it sounds good for people to say wouldn’t 

you like to have your account, wouldn’t you like to manage it, 

wouldn’t you like to leave it to your children, that is a different 

paradigm. That is called a 401(k) plan, and I would not suggest 

turning Social Security into a 401(k) plan, for many, many reasons. 

About working longer—and I realize this is not what anyone is 

suggesting, but I would say the first thing that comes to mind is 

I think Social Security was put in in the first place because before 

that people had to work until they dropped dead because they 

didn’t have any source of income. 

So the idea about people working longer and encouraging them 

is absolutely the right thing to do, but there is a limit, and the 

need in terms of the people who actually need to work longer 

versus want to work longer is strangely skewed toward the very 

high-income people that we say that we are not really focused on. 

So the people who must work in that instance are the people who 

are lower-income who cannot afford to retire, and the people that 

want to work, many of them, do all kinds of things. 

They may decide to go into the government after they retire. 

They may decide to go from government into private industry once 

they retire. They have got a lot of things on their plate. I don’t 

think we are worried about them, but I would worry about suggesting that the person who lives on a $40,000-a-year income need 

not do anything else. The question to ask them is, if $40,000 is OK, 

is $50,000 better, would $60,000 be better, and plan around the 

needs of what those incomes are. So that would be my comment 

there. 

Senator KOHL. Mr. Stein. 

87

Mr. STEIN. Well, as to the merits of working longer, I think the 

clear answer is it is better to work longer both in terms of your 

physical and mental alertness, unless you are working in a particularly strenuous job like coal mining. There is an acute labor shortage in this country for clerical jobs, and I think older people are 

ideally suited to work at those jobs and it is ideal for the employers 

and it is ideal for them. They feel better about themselves. Their 

days are organized. They have higher self-esteem. It is a very great 

benefit to work longer, and I must say people are, in a word, 

happier if they are working longer. 

I am a little puzzled about one of my colleague’s comments because the data I have seen indicates that Social Security only replaces about 40 percent of the average retiree’s income. As I 

revolve in my mind data I have recently seen from the American 

Enterprise Institute about how much Social Security is paid, that 

seems to be approximately correct. 

Where is the rest going to come from? At least some of it has got 

to come from a guaranteed source if you are going to be prudent. 

Prudence, it seems to me, dictates that if your employer is kicking 

you out of the defined benefit plan, you rejoin the pool, and you can 

rejoin the pool by buying annuities. 

I don’t in any sense recommend that people do it carelessly. I recommend they shop very, very carefully and only buy the services 

they need, but it is a good idea to be in a big, giant mortality pool 

such as can be provided by a gigantic insurance company. Again, 

shop carefully, ask all the right questions. But Social Security is 

not going to do it, except for the lowest-income Americans, and another guaranteed source of lifetime income is desirable. 

Senator KOHL. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Mr. UTKUS. Ben, those statistics are from Social Security, just by 

the way. So the fact is today 30 percent of Americans get 90 percent of their income—it might not be enough, but it is all coming 

from Social Security. So this is what people actually have versus 

what they might replace. That is where those numbers are. 

Mr. HENRIKSON. Mr. Chairman, if I might, one other point that 

was brought up earlier. I would be remiss in terms of the plan 

sponsor community and their interests in their employees going 

forward—the question was asked about people being encouraged to 

work longer. It would be helpful if the pension laws were such that 

it doesn’t put an employee in a position to say, ‘‘Well, if I retire, 

I can get my pension benefit at this employer; if I continue to work, 

I can’t, so what I will do is retire and go to work for my competitor.’’

So the plan sponsor community—certainly, in the years that I 

have worked with them, employers are working very, very hard to 

solve this problem. They want to do the best thing for their employees and this would be helpful in terms of having people be able to 

work where they are perhaps part-time and not sacrifice the pension benefit to do so. 

The CHAIRMAN. We are working on that. We need to fix that. 

Senator Carper, of Delaware. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, Senator Kohl, and to 

our guests, our witnesses, thanks for being here. It is good to see 

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you and we appreciate very much your testimony and you willingness to respond to our questions. 

I used to be State treasurer in one of my earlier incarnations and 

I was responsible for administering our State’s retirement program 

for State employees. We wanted to encourage our employees to put 

money into a deferred compensation plan, and we had a variety of 

investment options there and we found discouragingly low participation among lower-compensated State employees. Those people 

who were generally in the top quartile of income in the State employee ranks found out about the program and they found ways in 

many cases to defer a portion of their income for their retirement. 

A smarter State treasurer than me came along and came up with 

an idea to incentivize folks to participate in these plans by giving 

them all a little bit of money to seed their accounts. If you happened to be a higher-compensated State employee, it didn’t really 

amount to much, but if you happened to be someone who could only 

put maybe $20 or $30 a month into an account—you know, you 

give them a couple of bucks and it is an immediate, real return on 

their investment. 

The other thing we figured out is if people have the option of opting in to participate in a plan like that, a lot of times they don’t. 

Even people that ought to who could don’t. But if we had a sort 

of an opt-out requirement—and you may have already gotten into 

this—if there is an opt-out requirement, people a lot of times will 

get in and there is sort of a reluctance to get out. It is a very positive thing. 

Let me just ask your comments sort of with respect to opt-in and 

opt-out and how do we incentivize, and maybe some ideas that you 

are familiar with incentivizing particularly lower-compensated 

workers to participate in plans like this. Mr. Gilbertson, first, and 

we will just——

Mr. GILBERTSON. Yes, I can speak a little bit to it. As I indicated 

earlier, I do some consulting for firms with a 401(k) program and 

one of the firms is very progressive because they put in automatic 

enrollment and you can then opt out of it. But they are finding that 

once they do the automatic enrollment, the employees have a tendency to stay in it. 

I think that is a tremendous step forward, whether you go into 

a 401(k) or a 457 plan, which I am assuming that is what you are 

talking about as far as deferred compensation on a State level. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. 

Mr. GILBERTSON. It is something to get them started, and once 

they see that that money is earning something for them and is 

growing, then they are a little bit more incentivized to do it. I think 

it is an excellent idea, and like I say, I think more and more businesses should look at that aspect of it. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, thanks. 

Mr. Utkus. 

Mr. UTKUS. Senator Carper, the——

Senator CARPER. Let me ask, Steve—I asked the folks sitting behind me, I said, ‘‘Does he pronounce his name Utkus or Utkus,’’ 

and they were equally divided. 

Mr. UTKUS. Oh, OK. I say Dick Butkus, no ‘‘B.’’ 

Senator CARPER. Well, that is good. Thank you. 

89

Mr. UTKUS. You know, there is a great deal of innovation in the 

401(k) world and there is a lot of interest in promoting these automatic enrollment plans. In the current conference committee, there 

are some provisions which we hope will survive to the final bill 

that encourage this within the defined contribution system. 

I should say there are two parts of this. One is among plans that 

are offered, you want to encourage this trend toward automatic enrollment. I think Congress is taking some important steps there. 

But the second part is those particularly lower-wage workers at 

firms that offer no plan at all, and so there are some interesting 

ideas floating around. 

For example, Brookings and Heritage just had an interesting 

proposal on automatic payroll deduction IRAs in the workplace. 

The Pension Rights Center is working on a conversation on coverage with financial institutions, organizations like AARP and others, to develop ideas around pension coverage among small businesses. So it is really a two-part problem, but I certainly think anything we can do to encourage more automatic decisionmaking is 

something we should certainly promote. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Mr. Henrikson. 

Mr. HENRIKSON. A couple of comments there, Senator. One of the 

things in terms of basically giving some money to people to encourage them to be part of a plan—in the 401(k) world forever it seems 

that has been part of the package; in other words, matching contributions. We all know that one of the real tragedies in the 401(k) 

world in the employer space is that there are so many low-paid 

people who do not enter the plan, despite the fact it is matched, 

which, of course, if I do my math right, tells me you get 100 percent return right out of the box. 

So the issue here is that the plans in that instance are well-designed, but we get back to knowledge and education and again. So 

the emphasis has to be to really put the focus on that issue so employees understand really economically what they are walking 

away from. So that is one thing. 

In terms of opt-in versus opt-out, and so forth, inertia is an 

amazing, amazing power. If you are in——

Senator CARPER. I like that, I like that. 

Mr. HENRIKSON. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Inertia is an amazing power. I am going to use 

that. 

Mr. HENRIKSON. Well, it is because——

Senator CARPER. I will never say that you said it first. [Laughter.] 

Mr. HENRIKSON. Well, we see it in the employee benefits field 

and in other areas continuously. It is not just on the 401(k) side; 

it is also in the group insurance side, and so forth, that whatever 

people initially sign up on, they tend to let that ride for the longest 

term, and I would say sometimes unfortunately even if it is not appropriate, because it is difficult to figure out share; what is more 

valuable to my family, and so forth. 

So automatic opt-in, I think, is fantastic. It ought to be made 

simple to do from the employer’s point of view, from a legislative 

point of view. But what we must also realize is that the indication 

90

is, for example, on asset allocation that it is not unusual at all for 

an employee to set an asset allocation between fixed and equities, 

for example, in his 401(k) and then literally never change it. That 

is because there is a lack of continuing education at that particular 

plan or that particular employer. So that must be addressed. 

I would say that kind of behavior is one of the reasons why we 

think people managing a bag of cash after they retire is particularly difficult because the facts tell us that employees—many of 

them are becoming comfortable with income averaging into the 

marketplace, comfortable because it is automatic, not because they 

think about it everyday. 

When they retire, income averaging-out is not going to work very 

well if they are worried about invading principle. So the economists 

may say, ‘‘Well, then value-average out and you will be OK;’’ then 

you won’t invade that principle. So if the market goes down, just 

simply eat less this week, and I don’t think that works. 

So we put all of this together when we think consumer behavior 

within the context of employee benefit plans is extremely important. That behavior is what is going to really determine what the 

success or failure of these plans are. 

Senator CARPER. Mr. Chairman, my time is expired. Can I make 

one more point? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. My mom passed away last year after about a 

5- or 6-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease, and I remember visiting her in a nursing home where she lived then those last few 

years in Ashland, KY. I was in a nursing home down in southern 

Delaware this past week and it just kind of reminded me of the 

years of people’s lives where they are unable to care for themselves, 

unable to work, in some cases not all that old. We spend a lot of 

money to sort of maintain them, to make sure that they are cared 

for either in our homes or in many cases in a facility like the one 

my mom stayed in. 

As we think of ways to make sure that people don’t deplete whatever savings they have in the long run, part of it is actually curing 

a disease like that and to better ensure that when a person is like 

80, 82, 85 or whatever, they can still fend for themselves, and in 

some cases maybe even, if they want to do something part-time, 

they actually do that. We actually have, believe it or not, people in 

the U.S. Senate at that age who actually come to work and get a 

paycheck. 

My other point I wanted to raise is reverse mortgages. I don’t 

know that anybody has done that, but in my State we have always 

put a high emphasis on home ownership. Delaware has about a 75-

percent home ownership rate, which is among the highest in the 

country, and we continue to push for that. 

As you know, folks are able to, when they reach the latter stages 

of their lives and their homes are paid for, sort of live off of the 

equity of their home, which is an idea that has a great deal of attraction to me. I just would ask if you are aware of anything that 

we need to do with respect to home mortgages to make them more 

accessible. They are really not used that much. I am surprised how 

infrequently they actually are utilized. 

91

But any thoughts that you have on how we might encourage people to make better use of the equity of their home—I think, as you 

know, for most people the biggest source of their savings in their 

lives is the equity in the home that they own. 

Anybody at all? Yes, sir, Mr. Gilbertson, and then Mr. Stein. 

Mr. GILBERTSON. I think one of the things that is happening as 

it relates to the very question you have is that we are talking about 

a reverse mortgage type of a situation where you can take some 

money out as you retire, and so on. But the waters haven’t really 

been tested with those philosophies, and they can be very harmful 

if you are not very careful about the contract that you are entering 

into. So I think a lot of work needs to be done as it relates to that 

very issue. 

You are correct that a majority of people are going to have their 

home paid for and they will have a tremendous asset there to draw 

upon that they will need. But, you know, we have to be very careful about how we put people into those types of situations because 

it can be very detrimental and harmful for them. So it is going to 

take a lot of study and a lot of work before we get comfortable with 

that concept, I think, but it is a goal that I think needs to be 

worked on. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Mr. Stein, and then Mr. Henrikson. 

Mr. STEIN. Thank you, Senator. First of all, you do not need to 

give credit to my colleague to your left. Mr. Newton thought of the 

law of inertia, the body at rest——

Senator CARPER. I knew it was one of the two. 

Mr. STEIN. Yes, he is a great genius of physics, but Newton did 

it a few centuries ago. A body at rest tends to remain at rest; in 

motion, tends to remain in motion. 

Second, if I may respond to something else that you just said 

which I thought was a brilliant point that really we should have 

talked——

Senator CARPER. I said it? 

Mr. STEIN. Yes. We should have talked about it before, which is 

if we imagine people——

Senator CARPER. That is a first. We should bring this man back 

more often. 

Mr. STEIN. If we imagine people thinking about their own pool 

of assets, their bag of money, as the Chairman said, what if they 

do have Alzheimer’s? What if they are mentally incapacitated? It 

is an awfully nice thing to have that regular check coming in in 

the form of the annuity to maintain their quality of life without 

them having to worry about having to make those decisions or be 

horn-swaggled or tricked by a number of unscrupulous people out 

there who will do that with people with Alzheimer’s. It is a terrible 

thing, but it is true. So a steady source of annuity income is a lovely thing for people who are incapacitated in their brains or any 

other part of their body. 

A third thing about reverse mortgages: as my colleague on my 

left said, the fees can be overwhelming; they can be startling. Also 

there is a tricky provision in there that if you leave your house for 

a certain amount of time, even if you go into a nursing home or 

for extended medical care, the person who had sold you the reverse 

92

mortgage can sometimes seize your house. So there is a lot of 

strengthening of that particular kind of instrument that is needed. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks. A quick true story. My mom used to 

live down in Florida, down in Clearwater, for a number of years 

after my dad died, and her mind was starting to slip a little bit. 

We kept her at home as long as we could and surrounded her with 

help around the clock, but she would get phone calls from these unscrupulous telemarketers to try to sell her this or that. I remember 

she put a roof on her house and the roof that she had was perfectly 

fine. I remember she spent more money buying a vacuum cleaner 

once than some people spend on a car. 

But when we were packing her up to move her up to this nursing 

home in Kentucky, my sister found—as we were going through all 

this memorabilia, she found a long-term care insurance policy that 

somebody had sold to my mother for little, if any, money, and it 

was good for 2 years. For the first 2 years that my mom stayed in 

that wonderful facility in Ashland, it was largely paid for, and I 

thought my mom was smarter than all of us put together. 

I think, Mr. Henrikson, you were going to say something. I am 

well over my time. 

Mr. HENRIKSON. Yes, Senator Carper, a couple of things just to 

let you know how important MetLife feels about this topic of Alzheimer’s. I don’t know if you knew this, but the MetLife Alzheimer’s award for research is the equivalent of the Academy 

Awards in that area. We have been focused on Alzheimer’s as a societal problem for well over 20 years now. 

I say also from a personal point of view my father was an Alzheimer’s victim and I quickly would tell anyone so was my mother, 

because she actually passed away before he did and I am sure that 

had a lot to do with the stress and strain. 

The other point you make in terms of as people age—and I think 

this is a very good one—we can all talk about being facile in terms 

of managing our portfolios while we are young, want to take the 

time to do it, educate ourselves, read the Wall Street Journal everyday, and so forth and so on. But as people age—and we find this 

not only in terms of our research with older people, and so forth—

people even read print differently at a certain age based on the 

change in their eyes, and so forth. It is very important to be able 

to communicate with these people. 

The checks we send via annuitization—someone mentioned 

spending, as you did, part of the time in one part of the country 

and part in the other. That is what we do. We track people down 

and we pay them their annuity payments, and we have schedules. 

Some of them stay in Florida these many months, in New York so 

many months, or whatever. It is very important to understand the 

dynamic of aging, the decisionmaking process and, quite frankly, 

the fear because one of the things that people really are burdened 

by is fear. 

I know my parents became more and more fearful, and if they 

watched their bag of cash before they became more fearful, they 

watched it continuously. They didn’t do anything with it. They 

didn’t turn it into any income. They simply became fearful of the 

unknown because they didn’t know how long it could last. 

93

I think we are not here talking about wealthy people, but there 

are plenty of Americans who I think will be just imprisoned in 

their own homes through fear if they don’t have an income to live 

on. It makes a huge difference in people’s lives. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you all. 

Mr. Chairman, thanks for being so generous with this time. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, we invited you all here recognizing 

your competence and the contribution you could make to this hearing. You have more than met our expectations and we are grateful 

to you. We want you to know that because of C-SPAN’s good work, 

a lot of people will see you. It is amazing how many seniors in the 

country watch and care about what this Committee does. We care 

about their concerns and that is why we have had this hearing. 

So in addition to Mr. Stein, you are all now TV celebrities and 

we congratulate you on that. But more, we thank you for your 

time. You have added immeasurably to the meaning of this day 

and to the Senate record. 

With that, there are two roll call votes and we are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:29 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(95)

A P P E N D I X 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICK SANTORUM

Over the past year, the U.S. economy has created almost 1.9 million jobs; our unemployment rate fell to a remarkable 4.6 percent. Our productivity, real hourly compensation and personal income have all increased. Our nation’s real GDP grew at 

an annual rate of 5.3 percent for the first quarter of this year, following a growth 

of 3.5 percent in 2005, the fastest rate of any major industrialized nation. 

This incredible growth reflects the success of tax-relief legislation, Welfare Reform, and the elimination of the marriage penalty. Our recent doubling of the child 

tax credit and continued legislation that supports families and small businesses will 

continue to sustain these positive economic trends. It is clear that these programs 

from Congress have capitalized on the incredible resilience and creativity of the 

American people. 

Yet, as more Americans gain jobs, as income increases, and as overall economic 

success indicators continue to stay strong, more and more Americans are feeling 

anxious about their financial futures. Leading economic indicators demonstrate that 

American households are not saving enough. 

Over the past decade, the percentage of after-tax, disposable income saved has declined precipitously; the latest recorded personal-savings rate in the U.S. fell to an 

embarrassingly low negative 0.5%. This low savings rate lags far behind that of 

other industrial nations, constraining national economic growth and keeping many 

Americans from entering the economic mainstream. 

In the face of uncertainty from outside retirement sources, financial security in 

retirement increasingly relies on the individual. Success and security today depend 

not just on a job and growing income, but increasingly on the ability to accumulate 

a wide range of assets. In the past, corporations and the government offered defined-benefit pension plans; Social Security was ‘‘more secure’’, and retiring seniors 

were certain that they wouldn’t run out of money. The quickly shrinking number 

of defined benefit pension plans and the pending bankruptcy of the Social Security 

program all contribute to this increased financial uncertainty. 

As other retirement programs become less reliable, owning a home, obtaining an 

education and building diverse financial investments are becoming key components 

to retirement for a growing number of Americans. These opportunities, however, are 

especially daunting for low- and moderate-income families. Asset-building strategies 

for these low- and moderate-income families, therefore, can no longer rest on 

government- and employer-provided programs; instead, financial security must include strengthening incentives to save and invest and also increasing financial education tools to enable individuals to make informed and appropriate decisions. 

As a first-step to address the Social Security crisis, I introduced the Social Security Guarantee Act, which would ensure Americans born before 1950 that they 

would receive their Social Security check. This was my way to cut through the misleading rumors that reforming our Social Security program would leave America’s 

seniors out in the cold. While I know that many of my colleagues want to have an 

open and honest debate over viable solutions for retirement security, fear and lies 

continued to shape the debate. It is my hope than in the near future we can acknowledge and address the unfair and financially unsound structure of our current 

Social Security system, and that the Social Security Guarantee Act will facilitate a 

more open and honest debate. 

Reforming the structure of our current retirement program, however, is not 

enough to ensure financial security. In this difficult political environment, we must 

create asset-building programs and policies poised to boost savings in both the short 

term and the long term. One of the most promising strategies for achieving this, 

particularly among the low- and moderate-income working families who most need 

increased retirement security—is to facilitate the direct deposit of federal income 

tax deferrals into IRAs and other similar accounts. I commend the IRS’s newly anVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:00 Nov 01, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00099 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 H:\DOCS\30042.TXT SAGING1 PsN: JOYCE
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nounced split-refund program, which will allow taxpayers to designate and deposit 

their refunds into a savings and retirement account with any U.S. financial institution. 

Another important asset-building tool is the Individual Development Account. The 

Individual Development Account (IDA) program is an element in my Savings for 

Working Families Act that I introduced with Senator Lieberman. It encourages ownership among low-income individuals by offering them matches for their savings and 

by rewarding monthly savings of working-poor families who are trying to buy their 

first home, pay for post-secondary education, or start a small business. These 

matched savings accounts are similar to 401(k) plans, but better serve low-income 

families by providing them with financial literacy training and consultation. The 

Savings for Working Families Act will provide the infrastructure for sustained investment through combining IDAs with the educational tools that can ensure financial security. 

My Savings for Personal Investment, Retirement, and Education Act includes another savings-promoting tool called a KIDS Account. KIDS Accounts will create an 

opportunity for every child and their family to begin investing in their future by providing a sound financial start for children born into poverty and creating opportunities for children and families to become more financially literate. The accounts will 

be supported by incentives designed to encourage savings, promote financial literacy, and expand asset-building opportunities like homeownership, education and 

retirement. 

The final program that I’d like to mention is the 401(k) Enhancement Act, which 

provides incentives to employers to automatically enroll employers in 401(k) plans 

by removing the barriers that have deterred employers from offering automatic enrollment in the past. It is clear that automatic enrollment dramatically increases 

participation in 401(k) plans and boosts the savings rate. The Employee Benefits 

Research Institute reports that less than 40 percent of U.S. workers have calculated 

how much they will need to retire; 30 percent have not saved anything for retirement at all; and only 20 percent of Americans feel confident about having enough 

money to live comfortable in retirement. 401(k) plans are critical for financial security because they shift risk and decision-making from the growingly reluctant employers to the individual; the incentives included spur savings and employer-confidence within the programs. 

It is my hope that Congress will support incentive-based savings programs to reflect the changing economic realities within America and then turn to seriously addressing the Social Security crisis. It is my belief that proactive public-private partnerships can expand opportunity for American families who fear their financial future. I believe that these incentives, coupled with educational programs and a fair 

and thorough look at our current pensions and Social Security policy will prevent 

the United States from encountering a savings and retired crisis.

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