Blackstone Group President Hamilton “Tony” E. James and labor economist Teresa Ghilarducci already had taken on the road their proposal to offer a universal pension plan for every U.S. worker. Now they have published a book and launched a website and a social media campaign.
The proposal by Mr. James, who is also chief operating officer, and Ms. Ghilarducci, the Bernard L. and Irene Schwartz professor of economics at The New School for Social Research, would invest 3% of employees' earnings in an individual account, which would be pooled and professionally invested.
Unlike Social Security, employees retain ownership of the assets. And unlike defined contribution plans they would not be responsible for making the investment decisions. Upon retirement, the account balance would be converted to an annuity.
“Our plan is a simple, sustainable, low-cost and politically viable proposal to enable workers to save and invest more effectively to secure their retirement,” Mr. James said in a written statement.
The book — “Rescuing Retirement: A Plan to Guarantee Retirement Security for All Americans,” published by Disruption Books — follows Mr. James' keynote address in June at Pensions & Investments' third annual Global Future of Retirement conference in Washington as well as a March white paper published by the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School.
The website is rescuingretirement.org, with the social media campaign driven by the hashtag #fixretirement on Twitter and Facebook.
