State Sen. Art Haywood (D-Montgomery/Philadelphia) recently said he is pleased with Pennsylvania Treasurer Joe Torsella’s Private Sector Retirement Security Task Force’s findings on establishing a state-managed private retirement savings plan.
The task force’s report recommends legislation that would create of an auto-IRA within the Treasury Department that includes automatic enrollment along with tax free and low employee contribution levels.
In Pennsylvania, more than 2.1 million who do not have access to workplace retirement savings plans.
Haywood is working with Torsella and Sen. Pat Browne (R-Lehigh) to develop legislation that would create retirement savings plans for the employees of companies that do not have private pension or retirement plans.
The bill will be introduced soon, Haywood said.
“More than two million working Pennsylvanians do not have access to a retirement savings program at work and 750,000 workers who do have access to a program at work do not participate,” Browne said. “This has to change. If it doesn’t, Pennsylvania taxpayers will be the ones who have to cover their costs in retirement through long-term care and other public assistance programs.”
Haywood said he witnessed the challenges of hardworking individuals when he served as a member of the Finance Committee and as the Democratic chairman of the Aging and Youth Committee.