Max Baucus: “I am very pleased to be joining my chairman, Senator Grassley, to introduce this bill today. I also want to express my…”

“I am very pleased to be joining my chairman, Senator Grassley, to introduce this bill today. I also want to express my particular appreciation to Senator Bob Graham and Senator Jeffords, without whose tireless work on pension issues this bill would not have been possible. We all know that our nation is facing a demographic shift of tremendous proportions in the coming decades. There are over 35 million people over the age of 65 today. By 2050, the number of people aged 65 and older is estimated to rise above 81 million. Yet we have watched the oncoming wave of retirements without adequately preparing for them, either as a nation, or as individuals. About three in every four workers say they have personally begun saving for retirement outside the Social Security system. But the amounts accumulated by workers as a whole are unimpressive. Most have accumulated less than $50,000 in their retirement accounts. One-half of all 401(k) accounts have balances of less than $10,000. Now some of these small amounts, not surprisingly, belong to younger workers who have more time for those assets to grow. But only one-fourth of those aged 35 and older have saved more than $100,000. Americans can already expect to live about a quarter of their lives in retirement. As advances in medicine conquer more and more life threatening diseases such as cancer and stroke, more of us will live to see our second century--spending a full one-third of our lives in retirement.”