Brown Highlights Need for Improved Access to Retirement Plans, Renews Call to Strengthen Social Security at Finance Committee Hearing

WASHINGTON, D.C. – With more than half of Americans lacking access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) today renewed his call to strengthen Social Security while highlighting the need for improved access to retirement savings options during a Senate Finance Committee hearing today.

“When tens of millions of Americans are not prepared for retirement – it’s a national crisis,” Brown said. “While we must focus on improving transparency and access to employer-sponsored plans, the reality is that for most seniors, Social Security makes up at least two-thirds of their retirement income. Maintaining and expanding Social Security is critical to having a sound retirement security policy.” 

Brown is a lead cosponsor of the Strengthening Social Security Act of 2013, legislation that would increase benefits for seniors and extend the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund, on which nearly two in three Americans rely for at least half of their income in old age.

As chairman of the Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions and Family Policy, Brown has held a series of hearings on the current retirement crisis and Social Security’s fundamental role in retirement security. In May 2014, Brown chaired a hearing, entitled “Strengthening Social Security to Meet the Needs of Tomorrow’s Retirees,” that examined the retirement challenges facing the next generation of retirees and how Social Security can be expanded to meet those needs. In March 2014, Senate Finance held a hearing examining “Innovative Ideas to Strengthen and Expand the Middle Class,” where Brown urged Congress to pass two pieces of legislation he authored which would help promote economic opportunity for all Americans: one by strengthening the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); the other, by creating a National Network of Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) in order to create thousands of high paying, high-tech manufacturing jobs. In Feb. 2014, Brown chaired the first Congressional hearing on the “myRA” retirement plan for low- and middle-income workers that was proposed by President Obama in his 2014 State of the Union Address. In Dec. 2013, Brown’s hearing examined “The Role of Social Security, Defined Benefits, and Private Retirement Accounts in the Face of the Retirement Crisis” and addressed the decline of defined benefit plans, the emergence of defined contribution plans, and Social Security’s fundamental role in retirement security.

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