The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a markup session on Wednesday where it will discuss a retirement security package often referred to as SECURE 2.0.
The bill under consideration — the Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2021 — includes dozens of provisions aimed at boosting retirement security. A spokeswoman for Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., the bill's sponsor, said in an email Monday afternoon that it should be officially posted to Congress' website soon.
Mr. Neal and Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the committee's ranking member, originally introduced the bill in October during the previous congressional session. Mr. Neal announced the planned markup session Monday.
Broadly, the bill builds on the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhance Act, known as the SECURE Act, which Congress passed in late 2019.
The Securing a Strong Retirement Act includes provisions that would require 401(k) and 403(b) plans to automatically enroll participants upon becoming eligible, allow 403(b) plans to participate in multiple employer plans and invest in collective investment trusts, create a national online database of lost retirement accounts in order to reduce the number of missing participants, and make changes to qualifying longevity annuity contracts, or QLACs, by removing the 25% cap — currently retirement savers can spend up to 25% of their account on a QLAC.
The bill's auto-enrollment provision initially enrolls participants at a floor of 3% and is then increased — unless the participants opts out — by 1% each year until it reaches at least 10% but not more than 15%.
The bill would also raise the age at which individuals are required to begin withdrawing a percentage of their tax-deferred retirement plan, but does so in a phased-in approach as opposed to all at once. While the first version of the bill introduced in October raised the required minimum distribution age to 75 from 72, the current bill would do so more slowly. For people who turn 72 after Dec. 31, 2021, and 73 before Jan. 1, 2029, the required minimum distribution age would be 73; for those who turn 73 after Dec. 31, 2028, and 74 before Jan. 1, 2032, it would be 74; and for those who turn 74 after Dec. 31, 2031, it would be 75.
Many of the bill's provisions have been featured in previously introduced bills, and boosting retirement security is one of the few truly bipartisan issues in Washington.
