I 
119TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2023 
To amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to provide 
for greater spousal protection under defined contribution plans, and 
for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 11, 2025 
Ms. UNDERWOOD (for herself, Ms. BONAMICI, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. NOR-
CROSS, Mrs. MCIVER, Ms. NORTON, Ms. TLAIB, Mr. GRIJALVA, and Ms. 
PINGREE) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Com-
mittee on Education and Workforce, and in addition to the Committees 
on Financial Services, and Ways and Means, for a period to be subse-
quently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such 
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act 
of 1974 to provide for greater spousal protection under 
defined contribution plans, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Women’s Retirement 
Protection Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
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(1) Approximately 28 percent of non-retired 
adults have no defined benefit plan or retirement 
savings, according to 2023 data from the Board of 
Governors of the Federal Reserve System. 
(2) In 2023, approximately one-third of the pri-
vate sector workforce did not have access to a retire-
ment plan at the workplace, and only half of the 
workforce actually participated in a retirement plan. 
(3) Women’s retirement preparedness often lags 
significantly behind their male counterparts’, result-
ing in the median income for women aged 65 and 
older in 2022 being just 83 percent of the median 
income of men aged 65 and older, including income 
from social security, pension plans, investments, and 
earnings. 
(4) Women aged 80 and older had the highest 
poverty rate among older persons in all age groups, 
with 14.7 percent of women aged 80 and older living 
in poverty while 10.3 percent of men in the same 
age group live in poverty. 
(5) Women make up two-thirds of low-wage 
workers, even though they comprise less than half of 
all workers, and low-wage workers are less likely 
than other workers to participate in a retirement 
plan at work. 
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(6) Because of the pay gap, women working 
full-time, year-round typically lose $398,160 over a 
40-year career thereby requiring the average woman 
to work almost a decade longer than her male coun-
terpart to make up that career wage gap. 
(7) Due to the lower lifetime wages stemming 
from unequal pay and caregiving duties, the average 
Social Security benefit in 2023 for a woman was 
$1,638 a month, while for men such average month-
ly benefit was $2,020. 
(8) While the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 (Pub-
lic Law 117–328) goes a long way to address this 
coverage gap, just 1 in 5 part-time workers who 
work a full year are eligible for a retirement plan, 
and women are almost twice as likely to work part- 
time as men. 
(9) While traditional defined benefit retirement 
plans have spousal protections, defined contribution 
retirement plans, which have become increasingly 
common, currently provide no similar spousal protec-
tions. 
(10) The Thrift Savings Plan of the Federal 
Government, the largest defined contribution plan in 
the world with approximately 6,500,000 partici-
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pants, requires its married participants to have their 
spouses’ consent for withdrawals and loans. 
(11) There were almost 990,000 divorces in the 
United States between 2020 and 2021. After the 
family home, retirement savings tends to be the larg-
est asset to be divided in a divorce. 
(12) While fees and expenses associated with 
retirement plans have been in decline, participants 
have seen direct charges for processing qualified do-
mestic relations orders increase significantly. 
SEC. 3. INCREASING SPOUSAL PROTECTION UNDER DE-
FINED CONTRIBUTION PLANS. 
(a) AMENDMENT OF EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT IN-
COME SECURITY ACT OF 1974.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—Part 2 of subtitle B of title 
I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act 
of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 1051 et seq.) is amended by in-
serting after section 205 the following new section: 
‘‘SEC. 205A. ADDITIONAL SPOUSAL CONSENT REQUIRE-
MENTS. 
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—Each individual account plan to 
which section 205 does not apply shall provide that, except 
as provided in subsections (c) and (d), no distribution may 
be made under the plan unless the spousal consent re-
quirements of subsection (e) are met. 
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‘‘(b) COORDINATION WITH SECTION 205.—Nothing 
in this section shall be construed to exempt an individual 
account plan from the requirements of section 205 with 
respect to any participant. 
‘‘(c) EXCEPTIONS FOR CERTAIN DISTRIBUTIONS.— 
Subsection (a) shall not apply to— 
‘‘(1) any distribution that is— 
‘‘(A) a minimum required distribution de-
scribed in section 4974(b) of the Internal Rev-
enue Code of 1986; 
‘‘(B) permitted under section 203(e)(1) to 
be made without the consent of the participant; 
or 
‘‘(C) in an amount that is less than 25 
percent of the account balance, but not more 
than once per account; 
‘‘(2) any distribution in the form of a qualified 
joint and survivor annuity (as defined in section 
205(d)(1)), a qualified optional survivor annuity (as 
defined in section 205(d)(2)), a qualified preretire-
ment survivor annuity (as defined in section 205(e)), 
or a series of substantially equal periodic payments 
(not less frequently than annually) made for the 
joint lives (or life expectancies) of the participant 
and the participant’s spouse; or 
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‘‘(3) in the case of a participant who does not 
elect a form of benefit described in paragraph (2) 
under the plan or who is participating in a plan that 
does not provide such a form of benefit, any dis-
tribution of the participant’s entire nonforfeitable 
accrued benefit if 50 percent of such accrued benefit 
is transferred to an individual retirement plan (as 
defined in section 7701(a)(37) of the Internal Rev-
enue Code of 1986) of the spouse of the participant. 
A transfer described in paragraph (3) to an individual re-
tirement plan shall be treated in the same manner as a 
transfer under section 408(d)(6) of the Internal Revenue 
Code of 1986. 
‘‘(d) EXCEPTIONS FOR CERTAIN ROLLOVER CON-
TRIBUTIONS.—Subsection (a) shall not apply to any dis-
tribution, involving a participant who has a spouse, that 
is an eligible rollover distribution (as defined in section 
402(f)(2)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986) made 
in the form of a direct trustee-to-trustee transfer within 
the meaning of section 401(a)(31) of the Internal Revenue 
Code of 1986— 
‘‘(1) to a plan to which this section or section 
205 applies; or 
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‘‘(2) to an individual retirement plan (as de-
fined in section 7701(a)(37) of the Internal Revenue 
Code of 1986) if— 
‘‘(A) the beneficiary of such plan is the 
spouse of the participant, or the spousal con-
sent requirements of subsection (e) are met 
with respect to any designation of 1 or more 
other beneficiaries; and 
‘‘(B) under the terms of the individual re-
tirement plan, the beneficiary of such plan 
(whether the spouse or other beneficiary des-
ignated under paragraph (1)) may not be 
changed unless— 
‘‘(i) the spousal consent requirements 
of subsection (e) are met with respect to 
any such change, or 
‘‘(ii) the spousal consent under sub-
paragraph (A) to the designation of a ben-
eficiary other than the spouse expressly 
permits such designation to be changed 
without the further consent of the spouse. 
‘‘(e) SPOUSAL CONSENT REQUIREMENTS.— 
‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—For purposes of this sec-
tion, except as provided in paragraph (2), the spous-
al consent requirements of this subsection are met 
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with respect to any distribution or any designation 
or change of beneficiary if— 
‘‘(A) the plan provides to each participant, 
within a reasonable period of time before such 
distribution or designation or change of bene-
ficiary is made and consistent with such regula-
tions as the Secretary of the Treasury may pre-
scribe, a written explanation of the rights of the 
participant and the participant’s spouse under 
this section; 
‘‘(B) the spouse of the participant consents 
in writing to the distribution or designation or 
change of beneficiary; 
‘‘(C) in the case of a distribution, the writ-
ten consent under subparagraph (B) is made 
during the consent period; and 
‘‘(D) the written consent under subpara-
graph (B)— 
‘‘(i) acknowledges the effect of such 
distribution or designation or change of 
beneficiary; and 
‘‘(ii) is witnessed by a plan represent-
ative or a notary public. 
‘‘(2) EXCEPTIONS
UNDER
SECTION
205
TO 
APPLY.—The requirements of paragraph (1) (other 
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than subparagraph (A) thereof) shall not apply with 
respect to any distribution or designation or change 
of beneficiary if a participant establishes to the sat-
isfaction of the plan administrator that— 
‘‘(A) there is no spouse; 
‘‘(B) the participant and the participant’s 
spouse have not been married for at least 1 
year as of the date of the distribution or des-
ignation or change of beneficiary; or 
‘‘(C) such consent cannot be obtained be-
cause— 
‘‘(i) the spouse cannot be located; or 
‘‘(ii) of such other circumstances as 
the Secretary of the Treasury, in consulta-
tion with the Secretary of Labor, may by 
regulations prescribe. 
‘‘(3) CONSENT
LIMITED
TO
SPOUSE
AND 
EVENT.—Any written consent by a spouse under 
paragraph (1), or the establishment by a participant 
that an exception under paragraph (2) (other than 
subparagraph (A) thereof) applies with respect to a 
spouse, shall be effective only with respect to that 
spouse and to the distribution or designation or 
change of beneficiary to which it relates. 
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‘‘(4) CONSENT PERIOD.—For purposes of this 
subsection, the term ‘consent period’ means, with re-
spect to any distribution— 
‘‘(A) the 90-day period immediately pre-
ceding the date of such distribution; or 
‘‘(B) such other period as the Secretary of 
the Treasury may provide. 
‘‘(f) DISCHARGE OF PLAN FROM LIABILITY.—Rules 
similar to the rules of section 205(c)(6) shall apply for 
purposes of this section.’’. 
(2) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of sec-
tions of part 2 of subtitle B of title I of the Em-
ployee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 is 
amended by inserting after the item relating to sec-
tion 205 the following new item: 
‘‘Sec. 205A. Additional spousal consent requirements.’’. 
(3) RIGHT OF ACTION.—Section 502(a) of the 
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 
(29 U.S.C. 1132) is amended— 
(A) by striking ‘‘or’’ at the end of para-
graph (10); 
(B) by striking the period at the end of 
paragraph (11) and inserting ‘‘; or’’; and 
(C) by adding at the end the following new 
paragraph: 
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