Then, because retirement legislation rarely moves as a stand-alone bill, lawmakers will need to find a vehicle to which they can attach Secure 2.0, she said.
“One of the questions is what will this ride on?” Kahn said. “They have to find a vehicle.”
In the meantime, the work of refining and working out differences in the House bill and Portman Cardin continues. “The thing that they’re pretty focused on is how to increase RMDs to age 75. The House version does a step approach where it phases in over the next 10 years and the Senate bill is sort of a cliff that goes from 72 to 75 by 2032,” Kahn said.
Lawmakers will also pay close attention to retirement plan auto enrollment and auto escalation provisions. “Auto enrollment is one of Chairman Neal’s biggest priorities,” she added.
A federal provision that would mandate that employers over a certain size offer automatic enrollment payroll deduction individual retirement accounts is on Neal’s wishlist, but more controversial.
Many states are moving forward with legislation that requires employers with more than 10 employees to offer auto-enrollment IRAs. Three states—Oregon, Illinois and California—already have launched auto-IRA programs. Maine and New York just passed statutes mandating auto-enrollment IRAs in the past two months.
There is also a lot of focus in Congress on the decumulation side of the retirement equation, Kahn said. “Lawmakers want to make sure that defined contribution plans offer some kind of retirement income distribution service” to help retirees figure out what they can securely draw down from their retirement assets, she said.